‘Kansas City a colony’: Struggle over police funding coming to a head in General Assembly
When the Kansas City Council made a novel bid to assert more control over police spending last year, state lawmakers were furious and vowed to fight back.
That long-anticipated reaction is now reaching a decisive stage in the Missouri General Assembly.
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.
All of the measures are far from done deals. The House bill must pass the Senate. The Senate proposals must clear final votes in that chamber and then pass the House.
Voters statewide would also need to approve the constitutional amendment, all but ensuring a contentious campaign to convince voters in Cape Girardeau, St. Louis, Poplar Bluff and everywhere else why they should care about police funding in Kansas City.
But the measures’ progress so far reflects continuing anger among lawmakers as well as the lack of appetite to end the unusual state control of Kansas City police — a legacy of Pendergast-era corruption.
“The actions taken by the city council are unacceptable and reckless, particularly at a time when crime remains a serious threat to public safety and the economic well being of Kansas City,” said Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, a Parkville Republican sponsoring the Senate measures.
Last May, Mayor Quinton Lucas and a supermajority of the council removed $42 million from the police budget and voted to require the police commissioners to negotiate with the city on how it would be spent. The goal was to fund the police at the required 20% threshold while allowing the city to control how funding above that amount was spent.
The Board of Police Commissioners, which governs the police department, sued and a Jackson County judge ruled the council had violated state law. The board is made up of members appointed by the governor. As mayor, Lucas also sits on the board.
Lucas and the council are again looking to assert more control, this time in a way that can withstand legal scrutiny. The mayor on Thursday introduced an ordinance that places $37.4 million for police in a separate fund.
The proposed ordinance outlines how the money should be spent: $4 million to hire officers, $5.1 million for raises, $4.6 million for dedicated patrol and community outreach staff, $6.5 million for 911 call-takers and communications unit operations and so on.
Luetkemeyer’s constitutional amendment would grant the General Assembly explicit power to set minimum funding levels for all law enforcement agencies, though senators are debating whether the measure should be scaled back to apply only to Kansas City.
The accompanying bill would require Kansas City to spend at least 25% of its general revenue on police. Lawmakers would be free to raise or lower the percentage in the future.
In the House, a bill approved on Thursday would require the city to include revenue from special funds when calculating general revenue, with only limited exceptions. The sponsor, Kansas City Republican Rep. Chris Brown, said the bill is needed to eliminate ambiguity in what revenue must count toward the minimum funding requirement.
“Some clarity is certainly needed with this,” he said.
Opponents said the bill amounts to lawmakers telling local officials how to spend local dollars. While the House passed the bill, supporters failed to find enough votes to advance an emergency clause that would have kept alive the possibility the legislation could become law before the KCPD budget is finalized in the coming weeks.
“What we need in Kansas City is less need for the police and if we can direct some of our funds toward prevention and to alternative support services, that’s what the intent of those extra funds were for,” said Rep. Ingrid Burnett, a Kansas City Democrat.
Funding battle comes amid challenges
For Lucas and allies, the measures are just the latest attempt to further trample on local control and add to long-running frustrations that Kansas City remains the only city in Missouri that doesn’t run its police department. St. Louis regained local control in 2013 for the first time since the Civil War after Missouri voters approved the move.
Lucas called the legislation an insult to Kansas City residents, adding that it would take away from what is spent on other city workers who also deserve pay raises.
“I don’t know why the state legislature, without understanding our budget issues or our budget concerns, would purport to put a budget spending requirement on one area of city operations, and in essence, defund everyone else.”
Councilman Kevin O’Neill, 1st District at-large, said the state is out of touch with reality and called Luetkemeyer’s bill “ridiculous.”
“That’s the ludicrousness of all of this,” he said. “We should have control of our own budget.”
A court challenge is likely if the General Assembly approves an increase to police funding minimums. The council is prepared to spend up to $450,000 for attorneys to fight the change.
As for the possibility of a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment, Lucas predicted St. Louis voters would “get it.”
The legislative battle comes as KCPD has struggled to recruit and retain officers — and as the city has experienced high levels of killings.
The $43,404 starting salary for police in Kansas City ranks among the lowest of the region’s law enforcement agencies. In an effort to add more officers and increase their pay, members of the Board of Police Commissioners in November approved the department’s operating budget for $281 million in the next fiscal year, which is about $8.1 million more than KCPD Chief Rick Smith initially requested.
The budget guarantees that $135 million will be dedicated to pay increases for sworn officers and civilian employees. Lucas pushed the police board to ensure those funds would not be used to cover settlement claims, which had been past practice. The proposal also called for money to pay for new police academy classes.
In the meantime, homicides have generally risen over the past two decades as community leaders grapple with solutions.
Last year, Kansas City saw its second-deadliest year on record, with 157 killings, according to data maintained by The Star. In 2020, 182 people were killed, making it the worst year on record.
Lucas said some of those who’ve spoken on the bill have tried to make it a “back the blue” issue. As he sees it, the budget concerns for police have already been resolved by city and department leaders who’ve pushed for raises and better benefits.
The legislation “continues to make Kansas City a colony and delegitimizes our elections and the power of Kansas City voters,” Lucas said.
Councilman Eric Bunch, 4th District, was part of last year’s push for the city to have some sway over how KCPD funding would be used before cutting a check. He maintains that the department shouldn’t get additional funding over 20% without an explicit conversation on how it will be spent.
“What I think is frustrating is that the Republican supermajority is often talking about small government,” Bunch said. “But then here’s a prime example of big state government swooping in to do preemption law on local governments.”
Frustration with council
The way Lucas and the council reallocated funding has frustrated even some Democrats. The budget moves were approved on the same day Lucas unveiled them — a rare occurrence that spurred outrage from Northland council members, who said the reallocation would harm the police department.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the calculations of what was going to happen after that,” Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, said. “Eventually … this was going to end up down here if they decided to proceed with that.”
Lucas defended the council’s budget maneuver last May, saying that same-day adoption has been used dozens of times to pass legislation in Kansas City.
“I think that this has nothing to do with being angry about procedures. I think this has everything to do about controlling Kansas City, marginalizing the voices of our diverse city and putting us in a colonial status,” the mayor said.
Still, Rizzo and other Democrats appeared exasperated with the Republican-backed legislation to alter police funding. Rizzo said he doesn’t believe lawmakers should be dipping into city politics. Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat, argued senators were essentially trying to throw money at policing issues.
As offered, Luetkemeyer’s proposal would have required Kansas City to put 26% of its revenue toward police. Like the House bill, it would expand the range of revenue that could be used. The general revenue that currently funds the department is roughly a third of total revenues.
But Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat, successfully lowered the percentage to 25% and restored the current definition of revenue through an amendment adopted on a voice vote.
In an impassioned speech, Washington spoke about former Kansas City Det. Eric DeValkenaere, who was convicted in November of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the Dec. 3, 2019, shooting death of Cameron Lamb – as well as other instances of police misconduct.
“I think we need to look at hiring people who not only look like me but at least a training program so that someone who shoots someone in the back today is not still on the force seven months later to throw an 18-year-old little girl who’s eight-and-a-half months pregnant to the ground,” Washington said.
Her comments were an apparent reference to Officer Blayne Newton, who fatally shot Donnie Sanders, an unarmed Black man, in March 2020. Newton was then captured on video a few months later as he allegedly put his knee on 25-year-old Deja Stallings’ back with her belly on the ground. She was nine months pregnant at the time.
The Star’s Glenn E. Rice contributed reporting
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 3:11 PM.
