Mayor urges KC police board to block funds for salaries from going to pay settlements
Mayor Quinton Lucas continued to push the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners on Thursday to ensure money set aside for salaries is not used to pay legal settlements.
The police board met via teleconference for just over an hour as they continued talks on the police department’s future spending. Much of the conversation was dominated by pay increases for officers and contingency spending.
“My goal remains that the state commissioners commit to funding salaries and officers, as promised (for years), not shifting money from our workforce to fund legal settlements and more admin(istration),” Lucas said in a tweet prior to the meeting.
The proposed budget seeks to spend $135 million to pay for 1,413 officers and civilian workers. Lucas introduced a board resolution that would block the police department from using money designated for salaries to pay legal settlements. The board took no action on the measure and agreed to reconsider it Friday.
Board members agreed to table their budget discussions until Friday morning. Their plan is to approve a final version of the budget which will be sent on to the City Council.
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.
The proposed budget for 2022-2023 calls for the department to spend $2.8 million in settlement claims.
The revised budget of $281 million includes pay increases for officers that 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 calls for money to pay for new police academy classes.
“It is extremely important to retain the employees we have by providing pay increases,” Smith said in his budget note to the police board.
“In addition, it is equally important to adjust the pay scales in order to be competitive with the market. These pay adjustments will provide an incentive for the retention and hiring of staff at a competitive rate.”
Smith wants to hire 200 police officers and fund pay increases and salary adjustments that were not included in last year’s budget.
The police department also wants to receive a portion of the federal dollars Kansas City received through the American Rescue Plan. Those funds would be used to pay for some police department expenses.
Other major line items in the proposed budget include:
Vehicles: Smith said the police department will need to replace 187 vehicles, plus 15 motorcycles — the estimated cost is $5.8 million.
Portable radio system: The budget proposal calls for $9.9 million to be spent to replace and upgrade 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.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 1:36 PM.
