Is KCPD Lying Or Just Really, Really Bad At Budgeting? Maybe Both.
The Kansas City Police budget and local control saga continued on Wednesday.
A Jackson County Judge held the first hearing where the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners was suing the City of Kansas City, Missouri over their recent decision to withhold $42 million of the $256 million police budget. This change was made in hopes to negotiate more concrete uses.
But some quick background:
The Kansas City Police Department is currently governed by a five person board called the Board of Police Commissioners. Of the five members, four are appointed by the Governor and one is the mayor.
This structure has racist origins that dates back to the civil war and was reinforced during the mob era of the 1920s and 1930s. Glenn Rice of Kansas City Star did a great piece on the history. I’d recommend checking it out.
Now, it’s a relic used by the conservative state government to deny local control to a majorly democratic and more diverse city.
The City Council does have one way to control the police department: through the budget process but they have to fund the police with at least 20% of the city’s budget.
So recently, the City Council (or at least a supermajority) and the mayor decided to take back $42 million of the budget, which is basically what was in excess of the required 20% of the budget.
It’s still allocated for the police but the City Council got sick of writing a blank every year for close to half of our budget with year after year increases in violent crime and homicides. The council wanted to have more agreements and conversations about how the money would be used and have report backs to them.
Board of Police Commissioners did not like that and so they sued the city and in turn the citizens they are charged to help protect. They claimed that once the yearly budget is done and approved by the board the City Council can’t change it. Kansas City argued the budget is a living document adjusted as needed.
So here we are.
At its core, the whole debacle is about control.
I think this case and the larger arguments will drag on and the losing side will probably appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. If they lose, the city should absolutely do that.
BUT!
One of the things that stuck out in the testimony was something the KCPD Budget Director said.
1,000 officers!
If you just glanced at it, you would “WOW! That’s a big cut!”
But if you spend more than 2 seconds thinking about it and have half a brain, you begin to realize it doesn’t add up.
KCPD employees around 1,200 officers and 2,000 people total. Its yearly budget is around $240 million per year (one of the highest per capita by the way and its normally higher in non-COVID times.)
So a $42 million cut is around 18% of the entire budget.
But they claim they will have to lay off 50% of the force? Doesn’t make sense at all.
So let’s slice it a different way. $42 million/1000 comes out to about $42,000 as the average salary per person and that would probably have to include benefits.
Councilperson Eric Bunch commented on this wacky math.
Either that number is way off or we have uncovered one of the biggest wage scandals in the city’s history.
Is KCPD lying? Or do they need to lay off the avocado toast to save their budget?
Whenever KCPD talks their budget at City Council, it always seems like they are just throwing out numbers. I joke that they have Enron accountants running their books because it’s hard to make sense of it all.
It’s hard to make sense of it all because no one really knows.
No one really knows what goes on at KCPD.
Reporters covering the hearing had to rely on Mayor Quinton Lucas saying the 1000 person lay off was completely false because no one has any information to verify it.
When it comes to KCPD, no one really knows what is going on.
If you’ve watched Channel 2, you probably would have seen Councilpeople from mainly the 3rd and 5th pepper internal affairs about their process, transparency, and effectiveness regarding citizen complaints.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has to pull teeth to get information about officer misconduct.
Again, we don’t know where the money is going.
And we don’t even know if they have implemented a non-binding auditor recommendation about officers taking home their police cars.
So no one really knows what’s going on over at police headquarters except maybe them.
And I’m starting to doubt that as well.
That’s a problem.
Nobody knows what’s going on with Kansas City’s single biggest budget line item that funds armed police that enforce our laws.
You’d think residents and taxpayers should have a right to understand how the department is operating, its budget, and the results.
And we have a Board of Police Commissioners that rubber stamps everything that comes before them with a sprinkling of Susan Collins type concern every once and awhile.
Local control of our police department means a lot of things to a lot of people but one of the reasons why people desire that change to the system literally every other city uses is that no one knows what is going on.
The 1000 person layoff threat was just another example of many of KCPD throwing out decoys to play politics and ward off any accountability.
Kansas City residents deserve to have access to information, honesty and transparency, and a police department that doesn't testify in court using exaggerations at best and at worst blatant lies in court to scare the public.
Kansas Citians don’t have that transparency and understanding.
But it should even if we don’t have local control of the police department.
Everyone! Dispatches From Waldo is nominated for a Pitch Award for best local blog. Please take a minute to vote for me. I’d appreciate it!
As always, if you’d like to subscribe to more analyses, hot takes, and amateur citizen reporting about Kansas City, Missouri politics and other musings please consider subscribing.