Kansas City Police Department in talks to increase budget. Here are big ticket items

Members of the Board of Police Commissioners met Thursday to discuss the Kansas City Police Department’s proposed budget calling for $281 million in the next fiscal year.

A revised budget proposal was distributed this week. It includes pay increases for officers that Mayor Quinton Lucas and other board members requested. It’s about $8.1 million more than the $272 million budget request Police Chief Rick Smith initially distributed to board members. That proposal included a 6% increase from the previous year’s budget and requests money to pay for new police academy classes.

Major spending items in the department’s latest proposal include:

Personnel: The proposed budget seeks to spend $135 million to pay for 1,413 officers and civilian workers. Smith wants to hire 200 police officers, and fund pay increases and salary adjustments that were not included in last year’s budget.

Vehicles: Smith said the police department will need to replace 187 vehicles, plus 15 motorcycles — the estimated cost is $5.8 million. It had been $15.2 million.

Portable radio system: The budget proposal calls for $9.9 million to be spent to replace and upgrade to replace the department’s aging portable radio system. The department currently deploys 1,872 portable radios.

Mobile radio system replacement: The cost to replace the 700 department in-vehicle radios would run about $3.1 million.

Camera system for aircraft: The department is looking to spend $1.9 million to replace cameras in its helicopter fleet.

Helicopter spare engine: Lucas questioned why the department would propose spending $400,000 for a spare helicopter engine. Smith said the additional equipment is needed because the helicopters are used to help locate suspects and search for missing people.

Legal settlements: The proposed budget calls for the department to spend $2.8 million in settlement claims.

On Thursday, Lucas introduced a board resolution that would require the police department not use money designated for salaries to pay legal settlements. The board took no action on the measure and agreed to reconsider it on Friday.

Lucas noted that the police department paid out $5.8 million in legal claims over the past fiscal year. Settlements include use of force allegations, vehicular crashes involving officers and other legal matters, according to police records.

Board members agreed to table their budget discussions until Friday morning.

Once the budget is approved by the police board, it goes to the city manager’s office for a round of adjustments. City leaders also have the ability to reduce the budget to the state-required minimum of 20% of the general fund.

This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 2:25 PM.