Even if it wins the lawsuit, concessions show KC police board has lost the argument

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners’ budget battle with City Hall continued Wednesday at the Jackson County Courthouse.

The board may or may not win the case. This much, though, seems clear: The police, the board and Police Chief Rick Smith have lost the bigger war, in ways that should change policing, and city politics, for a generation.

We’ve long called for local control of the department. But because of the police board’s ill-advised spending lawsuit, we’re closer to local control than ever before.

In May, you’ll recall, Mayor Quinton Lucas and eight of his colleagues decided to move $42 million from the police budget into a separate fund. Police would have to negotiate over how to spend that money.

On Wednesday, city attorney Tara Kelly told Judge Patrick Campbell that moving the funds was fully within the council’s rights. Police board lawyer Patrick McInerney disagreed. He told the judge the city’s police spending could be changed during budget discussions in March, but not later. “When that board approves that budget, the door slams,” he said.

The judge will decide if that’s true.

But let’s state the obvious: A door that slams has to be open first. And that admission, from McInerney and his team, should change the way the police are funded in Kansas City.

The idea that the City Council can’t tell the police how to spend money is gone forever. Any spending above the state-required 20% threshold is fully “discretionary” for the City Council, lawyers told the judge.

That means the City Council can freely tell the board to spend less money on cars and more on foot patrols. As long as the City Council makes its decisions in March (during what McInerney called a “live window,”) it will be free to interfere with the police board’s choices for any spending greater than 20% of the general fund.

In the hearing, the board’s lawyers essentially dared the City Council to do so next year, a challenge the mayor and council must meet. If the police board wins this case, council members will understand the police budget is locked in stone for a full year, untouchable by any elected official, for any reason.

No City Council would or should surrender its spending authority that easily, especially to an unelected, state-appointed board.

The clear answer is to hand the police a check for 20% of the general fund next March, and not a dime more. If police want or need more money, they can sign a contract for the discretionary cash, and agree to clawbacks if the council’s priorities are unmet.

The police will howl, of course, claiming that this is an effort to “defund” the police. But the exact opposite will be the case: If the department refuses an agreement, with discretionary money on the table, it will be the police board and Chief Smith defunding the police, not the City Council.

Any layoffs would be because of police board, Missouri law

The Board of Police Commissioners and the Fraternal Order of Police may seek the legislature’s help in overturning this reality. The state can’t raise the 20% threshold, though, because that would violate the tax-limiting Hancock Amendment. The board’s lawyers know that.

The 20% requirement used to be a floor. Now, it’s a ceiling. The board’s own lawsuit has seen to that, a fact made clear Wednesday.

Privately, lawyers on both sides know the real confrontation comes next year no matter what Campbell rules. Police board supporters say they hope “political pressure” will convince the City Council to spend more than the 20% requirement, which is why you’re hearing ever-changing scare stories about massive layoffs in the department.

Again, if there are layoffs, it will be because of the police board and state law, not the council. But pause for a moment to see the irony: If the police use “political pressure” to get more money, any need for a state-appointed police board disappears. Politics will once again control the department.

Judge Campbell is expected to rule on the spending ordinances shortly. His decision will likely be appealed, perhaps to the state Supreme Court.

But the real fight comes next year, when Kansas City can finally regain at least some supervision of its most important function. When that happens, the police board’s own lawsuit will have paved the way.

This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.