‘True accountability’: KC police chief faces tough questions over budget crisis
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Council presses police chief for transparency amid $343M police budget.
- Police memo suspends overtime, pauses hiring and halts noncritical purchases.
- Councilmember seeks audit; $10.9M in settlements cited among causes.
Kansas City council member Johnathan Duncan said the current budget crisis faced by the Police Department is frustrating, especially at a time the city is facing an expected budget shortfall of its own.
Calls for transparency and accountability are mounting as the city moves forward with its budget season and the Police Department navigates the “drastic” cost-saving measures announced last week in an internal memo.
“Last week’s internal message was sent out, taking a stronger stance on additional cost-saving measures as we approach the end of our fiscal year,” Police Chief Stacey Graves told City Council members Thursday. “There are several other contributing factors that have affected the current state of our budget, which I would not characterize as a crisis.”
The memo called for sweeping cuts to ensure basic services within the department can continue through the end of the fiscal year by suspending overtime. In addition to suspending overtime, Graves paused all hiring for staff positions and halted all purchases for “non-critical supplies and equipment.”
It also came two days after Graves was given a pay raise by the Kansas City Board of Commissioners in a closed-session approval, which raised her salary from $255,000 to $275,000.
Graves said Thursday that the main cause for the budget shortage is a combination of legal settlements and overtime. Duncan said there needs to be further discussion on what is coming in terms of lawsuits.
“It’s frustrating when the chief says that the lead cause of their budget crisis is settlements and can’t point to the things that they’re doing to hold officers accountable,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like there’s going to be any true accountability.”
Duncan said, despite giving the Police Department a seven percent increase in their budget for the current fiscal year, sitting at a total of roughly $343 million, Graves told council members twice Thursday that the department is expecting to ask for more money this fiscal year to cover the difference.
“They’re the only department that is asking for a mid-year funding increase, and they are far and away the most well-funded department,” Duncan said.
What are the next steps?
The Police Department submitted its new budget request in October 2025, with a total cost hitting approximately $417 million. Meanwhile, the city expects a $100 million budget shortfall.
Duncan said something will have to be cut in order to meet the needs of all departments.
“What are we going to defund in order to continue to throw money down the drain for police misconduct?” Duncan said. “Because something is going to have to get cut. Every other department has been directed to cut $2.5 million from their budget, except the police department.”
The Police Department expects to be over budget by roughly $3 million by the end of the fiscal year, which runs through April 30, on overtime expenses, but Duncan said that doesn’t factor in the lawsuits that remain pending in court.
Duncan said he plans to continue holding the department accountable as budget season continues, and said he expects Mayor Quinton Lucas to do the same, given the pointed questions he had for Graves on Thursday.
But Duncan did go as far as to say there needs to be an audit of the finances for the Police Department to see how the money is being spent. The city council has no authority to control the Police Department, despite funding it. Instead, the Police Department is managed by a five-member Board of Police Commissioners. Four of the members are appointed by the Missouri governor and the Kansas City mayor is the fifth member.
“It has been operating rogue, without any accountability or safeguards or true audit for too long, and it’s bankrupting our city,” Duncan said.
‘Not one cent more’
Gwendolyn Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said the solution for the city’s budget woes is to put a hard cap on police spending.
An amendment to Missouri state law requires Kansas City to dedicate no less than 25% of its overall budget to the police department. Grant said the City Council should appropriate that amount “and not one cent more.”
“We do not have local control,” Grant said. “There’s no accountability for them over how they spend the funds. And they just keep coming back for more and more.
“They need to govern themselves like all other city departments and justify their spending, and don’t spend more than they have.”
As part of the coalition of civil rights organizations, the Urban Council, Grant called for emergency police accountability during a Monday press conference for several Police Department issues that have arisen in recent weeks, including the memo from Graves.
In an interview on Friday, Grant again emphasized the coalition’s belief that the Police Department should terminate Officer Blayne Newton.
It was announced by Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson that her office could not pursue charges against Newton for a June 2023 shooting that killed two and injured another. Johnson cited Missouri law as the reason that they could not prosecute for the shooting but noted concerns over his continued employment with the Police Department. A civil lawsuit was ultimately settled for $3.5 million.
The Police Department has paid out $10.9 million in legal settlements over the past fiscal year.
Calling back to Graves’ comments on settlements being a cause of the budget crisis, Grant said she believes that it would be cheaper for the city to terminate Newton than to let him keep policing, even if he sued the city for his termination.
“You all are spending millions on lawsuits anyway, so if he sues, deal with it,” she said. “But if we’ve got to pay a settlement with him to get rid of him, that’s better for us than leaving this renegade loose cannon out there with a gun and a license to kill.”
Can’t comment on personnel matters
Duncan said he questioned Graves about how much the Police Department has paid out in legal settlements, without naming anyone specific. Graves said that she was aware and because it was a personnel issue, she could not comment publicly despite her wishes that she could. The conversation alluded to the June 2023 shooting involving Newton.
“You’re talking about one officer’s situation, but the settlements aren’t just from one officer,” Graves said.
But Graves said that some of the legal settlements were for lawsuits that occurred before she was appointed police chief in December 2022. Some of those date back to the 1990s, she said.
Graves said that the use of the word drastic in the memo was probably what caused alarm to the changes, saying it was taken out of context. Graves said she would’ve taken out the word given the fallout.
Lucas questioned Graves about the timing of the memo, and said it was sent two days before the police board’s monthly meeting. Lucas, who serves on the police board, said the memo was not discussed during their meeting.
“We do not regularly at board of police commissioners meetings talk about, I think, the more serious budget issues,” Lucas said. “One can come and see an amendment on a piece of equipment or all of that, but we’re getting $500,000 ordinances, not assessments on us being behind on overtime and I would encourage that to be shared a bit more broadly.”
Graves said if the gravity of the budget situation was not communicated clearly to Lucas during the Board of Police Commissioners meeting, then she takes ownership of that.
Graves was questioned by council members for nearly two hours, with both sides ultimately agreeing that there needs to be more communication between the sides. Graves said she would like to set up some sort of meeting with the council to be able to discuss the finances moving forward, particularly when it comes to settlements.
This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
