KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Some Missouri lawmakers angered by recently adopted budget changes to the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department have their own ideas for what should happen next.
On Thursday, Mayor Quinton Lucas announced two proposed ordinances aimed at increasing accountability for KCPD. The City Council passed both ordinances later that evening by a 9-4 vote margin.
The legislation re-allocates more than $42 million that had been allocated to the police department to a separate community services fund, which the city would control.
Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer (R-Parkville), who represents Buchanan and Platte Counties, called the change defunding the police department and said it will ultimately make the city less safe.
"We’re in an environment right now where we have record high homicides last year in Kansas City, and it seems like the exact wrong time to be removing police officers from the streets and taking money away from the police department," Luetkemeyer said.
Luetkemeyer and other lawmakers are looking at several options to get the state involved in the issue. He'd like to see a change of the state law that requires the city to give a minimum of 20% of the general revenue fund to KCPD.
The re-allocation would bring the department's funding back down to that minimum level from the 25.8% it was at.
"What I would like to see is for us to increase that to reflect the modern day needs of the department," Luetkemeyer said.
He also wants better clarification on what constitutes city revenue.
"There have been a lot of games that have been played by the city in the past where they’ve said well this particular source of funding is not revenue and then this one is," Luetkemeyer said.
Holding a special session to address the issue or addressing it during next year's regular session are all options on the table, he said.
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