Kansas City mayor proposes special fund in new attempt to control part of police budget
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is again attempting to give the city control over a portion of the police department’s spending.
Lucas on Thursday introduced an ordinance that would place $37.4 million of the department’s budget into a newly-formed fund to be controlled by the city manager, with its use to be negotiated with the Board of Police Commissioners. The mayor is calling it the Community Policing and Prevention Fund.
This spending, if approved, would go toward hiring more officers, community outreach staff and 911 call-takers and funding other crime prevention initiatives. The proposal now goes to the council’s Finance Governance and Public Safety Committee for consideration.
The $37.4 million is part of the police department’s $269 million budget allocation for the fiscal year 2022-2023 that Lucas has submitted to the City Council. That figure represents nearly 40% of the city’s general fund — well above the 20% minimum that state law requires to be spent on the police department.
The city funds the KCPD, but the department is under state control, overseen by a Board of Police Commissioners where four of the five members are appointed by the governor. The mayor is the fifth member. The unusual system was devised in response to 1930s Pendergast-era municipal corruption. City leaders have long chafed under the nearly century-old structure.
Kansas City saw its second-deadliest year on record in 2021 with 157 killings, according to data maintained by The Star. In 2020, 182 people were killed, making it the worst year on record.
Last May, the City Council voted to reallocate $42 million of KCPD’s budget to fund crime prevention and other crime-fighting initiatives, with use of the money to be negotiated by the city manager and the police board. The board sued, and in October Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Patrick W. Campbell ruled that the council was interfering with the board’s “exclusive management and control” of the police department.
But Campbell’s ruling left a path for Lucas and the council to make such changes during the city’s annual spring budget cycle.
The city’s attempt to assert budget control infuriated some Republican state lawmakers, leading to a move to raise the state-required funding minimum from 20% to 25%. That debate is ongoing in the General Assembly.
Police spending breakdown
This year’s proposed $269 million police budget is nearly $8 million more than the department was allocated last year. But it’s also $12 million less than what police commissioners approved and submitted to the city in November.
The starting salary for a Kansas City police officer is about $43,404, which ranks among the lowest of the region’s law enforcement agencies, according to the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99.
Last fall, the finalized police budget guaranteed that $135 million would be dedicated to pay increases for sworn officers and civilian employees. Lucas previously pushed the police board to ensure those funds would not be used to cover settlement claims, which had been past practice.
The bulk of the additional spending proposed by Lucas goes toward hiring and employee raises.
A breakdown of the $37.4 million is as follows
$4 million for the hiring of officers
$5.15 toward salary increases
$4.68 million toward dedicated patrol and community outreach staff
$550,000 toward full-time dedicated Crisis Intervention officers (CIT officers)
$6,570 toward 911 call takers and communications unit operations
$175,000 towards bulletproof vests as life saving equipment
$30,000 toward inmate and detainee food and beverages
The remaining $20 million will be put toward funding victim and witness support services in the police department’s violent crimes division. Money also would be spent on special operations, the traffic division and crime laboratory.
Budget disputes in Jefferson City
Lucas introduced the ordinance as debate on Kansas City police spending played out in Jefferson City this week.
The Senate, by a 20-9 vote, gave initial approval this week to one of two measures that together would raise the minimum percentage of Kansas City’s general revenue that must be spent on police from 20% to 25%. The other bill, a proposed amendment to the state constitution, remains under consideration.
The House on Thursday, by a 105-31 vote, approved an expansion of the kinds of revenue the city must include when allocating funds to the police. In effect, the bill would require Kansas City to increase spending on law enforcement.
Both measures are far from done deals.
The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed.
