Kansas City police funding bills may invite lawsuits, action from Missouri lawmakers

It’s looking like last week’s Kansas City Council vote to give City Hall more of a role in shaping how the Kansas City Police Department spends taxpayer resources could end up in court.

The Board of Kansas City Police Commissioners, the five-member board appointed by the Missouri governor to supervise police in Kansas City, met privately at a previously unscheduled meeting on Monday to discuss legal matters. While commissioners didn’t comment directly on the talks, they gave indications that a lawsuit was under consideration.

The Kansas City Council last Thursday voted to approve two ordinances by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas that reduced the KCPD budget by $42.3 million. It places the money in a separate fund and its use will be a matter for City Manager Brian Platt and police commissioners to negotiate. The $42.3 million is about 18% of the KCPD’s $239 million budget.

While the Kansas City Council sets the police department budget, the police commissioners have oversight on KCPD operations. KCPD was put under state control in 1939 as a response to machine politics and corruption in Kansas City at the time.

Most commissioners were “Taken by surprise,” police commissioner Nathan Garrett said in a text message on Monday, “which is unfortunate and puts the situation on far more complicated and urgent footing.

“Our principal objective as a Board is to protect the status quo while we seek more definitive legal conclusions,” Garrett added. “I’m optimistic we can get that done.”

Lucas would not discuss the particulars of the closed-door discussion with fellow commissioners on Monday — he voted against having talks out of the public’s view — but said he would welcome a legal challenge.

“We welcome any type of litigation,” Lucas said as he left the meeting. “The reason being because I actually think the whole structure right now violates the protection clause. I think it violates principles of just rational basis theory and how you organize a city or a government.”

Lucas was referring to the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly said Monday they will consider legislation that would either increase the amount of money that Kansas City is required to spend on policing or use federal coronavirus relief funds to make up any shortfall or cuts to the KCPD budget.

“I’m vehemently opposed to local political control of the police department,” said Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, a Parkville Republican. “This is another example of why this liberal City Council cannot be trusted to control the largest police department in the state.”

Lucas pushed back on Luetkemeyer’s comments.

“OK, what the hell are you doing to actually keep people from getting murdered in Kansas City?” Lucas said. “What are you doing to make sure that there aren’t more shootings in my neighborhood or yours? Those are things I wish they took more interest in.”

Luetkemeyer is one of several lawmakers pursuing legislation to increase the minimum revenue the city — currently 20% — must put toward the police department, and to require the city to count more forms of local revenue in that calculation.

“I want that amount to be reflective of what the current needs of the department has been in recent years,” he said. “It hasn’t been updated in decades. Twenty percent clearly is not sufficient.”

Lucas said he believed Luetkemeyer’s proposal may be unconsititutional.

KCPD receives more money from Kansas City’s general fund revenues than any other city department. The $239 million it received in the current fiscal year budget includes $40 million for pension costs.

Lucas’ ordinances earmarked an additional $3 million in police funding for use in hiring a new class of recruits from the police academy. Smith, the police chief, said earlier this month that he has not been able to hire new recruits since February 2020.

Still, Republican lawmakers insist that last week’s legislative package, introduced and passed on the same day by the Kansas City Council, represented an effective cut from the KCPD budget.

Rep. Doug Richey, an Excelsior Springs Republican, contended state law, which gives the board of commissioners “exclusive management and control” of the Kansas City police force, prohibits the commissioners from negotiating over how to spend the money.

“The mayor and City Council do not have authority in their capacities to usurp the authority of the police board,” he said.

Richey said he is looking for ways for the state to boost KCPD’s budget. He floated using Missouri’s federal COVID-19 aid to replace the $42.3 million.

Any additional funding, he said, “will come with the expectation that KCMO will be on the hook for the money we are able to shore up the budget with, or they would lose another form of funding to offset that … I’m not interested in giving the City Council a windfall of $44 million having taken it from the police department.”

Lucas said Richey’s proposal may be illegal, given that coronavirus relief funds come with terms on how they can be spent.

“My biggest concern is, why are they so concerned with Kansas Citians having the same rights as the people of Excelsior Springs have, the people of Parkville have,” Lucas said. “And maybe the senators can tell me at some point but I think this is part of unfortunate culture war type of issue.”