These ideas from Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office blocked in county budget stalemate
As the Jackson County Legislature continues to debate which county services should be funded in an emergency capacity without an approved 2025 budget, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office says several of its proposals have been effectively disabled by the legislature’s refusal to vote on their passage.
The prosecutor’s office helps administer COMBAT, a quarter-cent tax which has been funding law enforcement, violence prevention, substance-abuse treatment and recidivism organizations in Jackson County since the 1990s. With 2025 COMBAT funds and leftover 2024 funding out of reach, Prosecutor Melesa Johnson and her staffers have focused on trying to free up funding for three specific staffing and operations proposals.
Johnson, who testified in depth on her office’s budget freeze woes during a May 14th meeting of the Jackson County Legislature, has been vocal about the impact of the legislature’s refusal to treat COMBAT and other programs as candidates for emergency funding.
All three proposals have been through several legislative votes but remain in committee. Among them is a request to release $75,000 for the prosecutor’s office to hire a community engagement specialist for COMBAT.
The proposed new role, formally titled Community Organizer and Social Media Content Specialist, has been on the legislature’s agenda since March 31, where legislators have delayed their final vote at least five times.
COMBAT will be back on the ballot in Jackson County in 2027. Promoting COMBAT to future voters would be a main function of the community engagement specialist, Johnson said.
A second COMBAT-related proposal before the legislature, which would allow the purchase of new grant management software for $100,000, has also been delayed at least six times since March 31.
The seven full-time staffers who manage the COMBAT program currently organize all grant funding through Microsoft Excel, a process which Johnson described as slow and counterproductive.
“Frankly, given the delay of fiscal year 2025 with getting the funded agencies their dollars, that expedited payment system is all the more important,” Johnson said. “We’re going to be playing catch-up, and we can’t play catch-up doing things manually.”
At a May 14 meeting of the Jackson County Legislature, first district legislator Jalen Anderson referred to the $175,000 pair of proposals as “overwhelmingly needed in COMBAT.”
“COMBAT is still very much so stuck in the ‘90s in a lot of ways,” Anderson said.
At its May 19th meeting, the Jackson County Legislature also declined for the eighth time to make a decision on whether to enter into a $25,000 agreement with former prosecutor’s office communications director Mike Mansur for ongoing work with crime prevention campaign SAVE KC.
Mansur’s position, which he has been filling on a voluntary basis since January, organizes one of SAVE KC’s main events — “call-in” meetings where police, religious leaders and victims’ families connect with community members identified as likely to be involved in violent crimes.
Johnson told legislators that SAVE KC is the backbone of the county’s efforts against nonfatal shootings, which she said have been reduced by more than half in the past year.
Johnson said that she worries that unfunded or underfunded violence prevention programs will lose out on their greatest potential for impact if COMBAT funding remains tied up into the summer, when violent crime tends to spike.
“Because we don’t have a budget, that does not mean crime stops,” Johnson said.
