A Missouri-wide vote on Kansas City’s police budget? Absurd, and not just for KC
Missouri state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer says he’ll introduce a bill this week that would require Kansas Citians to spend at least 25% of their city’s general revenue on the police department.
The current threshold is 20%.
Luetkemeyer is wrong in every conceivable way: on the merits, on the right of self-government, on the need for limited government, on the role of local government. He’s also wrong on the Missouri Constitution, which he acknowledged.
In 1980, the state’s voters approved a tax-and-spending limitation proposal known as the Hancock Amendment. That amendment, which broadly caps government spending, is still in effect.
Almost everyone focuses on the caps — Hancock is why Missourians have to vote on most tax increases. But there’s a little-known section that prohibits the state legislature, or any state agency, from imposing unfunded mandates on local governments.
That’s precisely what Luetkemeyer’s bill would do. Raising the police spending threshold beyond 20% “would not survive the most basic Hancock scrutiny,” an attorney for the Board of Police Commissioners told us last summer.
Luetkemeyer seems to agree. “I’m well aware of the constitutional provisions,” he said in a tweet. “That’s why I’m also filing a companion joint resolution to my bill that puts the question on the ballot of whether setting minimum police funding thresholds should be a Hancock exception.”
Sen. Luetkemeyer, who is from Parkville, wants the entire state of Missouri to determine what Kansas City spends on its police department. Which is an absurd idea, and a dangerous one.
It’s also politically risky. If Luetkemeyer and associates can enact unfunded mandates here, they can do it in Chillicothe, and Sedalia, and Branson. Is that what Missourians want? Would voters agree to hand Tony Luetkemeyer the keys to their cities’ bank accounts?
Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate the irony of a conservative Missouri senator eviscerating a key component of the Hancock Amendment. If a Democrat tried it, Luetkemeyer and his buddies would put “tax-and-spend liberal” on full blast, immediately.
“I will always stand against radical attempts to defund the police,” said Luetkemeyer, in an insult to reality. No one is talking about defunding the Kansas City police. Kansas Citians do want a department that’s accountable to the people it serves, not right-wing zealots.
The only tool the city has is the police budget. “In Kansas City, we believe in local solutions to local problems,” Mayor Quinton Lucas tweeted.
Despite its obvious flaws, Luetkemeyer’s bill helps the public see what’s really going on at police headquarters. We now know the possibility of a 20% cap on police spending is real. It’s the reason why Police Chief Rick Smith is so determined to stay in his job during the budget process.
We also know Luetkemeyer and friends understand the implications of Judge Patrick Campbell’s October decision on proposed redirections in police spending. Campbell said the city could take that step, but only at budget time, not in the middle of the year.
That time is now. Key budget decisions will be made this month, with a full debate early next year. The Missouri General Assembly should play no role in those decisions. If voters don’t like what the City Council does, its members can be voted out of office.
Sen. Luetkemeyer has proposed state interference in a local decision, promised to destroy part of the Hancock Amendment, and suggested Missouri voters should decide Kansas City’s budget.
All of which is reckless and radical. What Kansas City decides would be best for Kansas City is really none of his business.
