KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former Kansas City, Missouri, police union spokesperson and developmental director for the Kansas City Police Officers Memorial Foundation sued both entities April 4 in Jackson County Circuit Court for unpaid salary and wrongful termination.
Jeanene Kiseling was hired in September 2016 to serve as the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 99’s director of media and public relations. The lodge serves as the union for the KCPD.
She also was put in charge of the memorial foundation’s development efforts. Her salary for work with the foundation was 20% of the gross money raised through fundraising activities on a series of renewing one-year contracts.
She alleges that the memorial foundation failed to pay her the agreed-upon salary, that President Brad Lemon “verbally berated her with raised voice and in a demeaning manner designed to intimidate Kiesling and prevent her from following up on her questions.,”
According to the lawsuit, Lemon repeatedly fired her — only to be rehired within days by the board — when she questioned if her salary was correct during more than six years on the job, and ultimately was fired after the foundation realized it owed her “a lot” of money.
Other board members “would negate Kiesling’s termination within hours or, on one instance, within a few days,” the lawsuit said.
Things came to a head in October 2022 when Kiesling again questioned her memorial foundation wages, believing she was owed more from a charity golf event the prior month.
The foundation’s business manager agreed and paid her after reviewing financial records.
It was around that time that Kiesling told Brad Dumit, a director with the foundation, that her wages “had been wrong for some time.”
Dumit and the foundation’s board members met with one of the foundation’s attorneys, Sean McCauley, who also represents Lodge No. 99 and the foundation in this case, in November 2022.
Kiesling was not allowed to attend the meeting, but the board determined that the foundation owed her “a lot” of money.
Dumit asked Kiesling to “come up with a number,” but she was not allowed to see any financial records for contributions the Kansas City Police Officers Memorial Foundation received to determine what she was owed.
Dumit also said the foundation would determine how much Kiesling was owed, but the two sides never exchanged dollar amounts.
The foundation did pay Kiesling a few thousand dollars, but the money remained well short of the contractual obligation.
The Kansas City Police Officers Memorial Foundation received $740,598 in contributions from 2018 to 2021, according to tax records. Records for 2017 and 2022 weren’t immediately available.
Shortly after the conversation about the foundation owing Kiesling “a lot” of money, Dumit and other members of the board of directors cut off contact with her.
Foundation President David Dayton, who had replaced Lemon a few months earlier, only approved a $220 payment to Kiesling in December 2022 — well short of the payroll request she submitted.
Kiesling claims the foundation had decided it was “recharacterizing the money” provided through its Peer Support program membership dues as “not a donation to the Foundation,” denying her remuneration for those contributions.
Kiesling requested a meeting and instead Lemon sent her an email on Dec. 30, 2022, which said “both Boards have decided that it is necessary and prudent to end your employment relationship with them,”
She was paid through Jan. 15, 2023, for her work with the police union, but the email also requested that she “not return to the Lodge or any other Lodge office” upon receipt of the email.
Kiesling sued, seeking her unpaid wages and “an additional amount equal to twice her unpaid wages and liquidated damages” plus attorney fees.
The lawsuit also claims Lodge No. 99 and the foundation were in breach of contract for failure to pay her under the terms of the contract and ending it prematurely. Her contract with the foundation ran through Aug. 31, 2023.
Kiesling also claims she was wrongfully terminated without cause, that her firing was in retaliation for asking about her wages from the foundation and that she was subject to a hostile work environment.
KSHB did not receive a response to messages sent to Kiesling’s attorney and the attorneys representing the police union and memorial foundation.
The police union and foundation have until June 14 to respond to Kiesling’s lawsuit.
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