Kansas City officials have another chance next month to fend off an attempt by Missouri lawmakers to force the city to spend more of its revenue on policing.
But despite opposition from Kansas City leaders and activists, there’s no formal campaign against the ballot initiative, which was previously passed by Missouri voters but later tossed by the Missouri Supreme Court over deceptive ballot language.
Instead, opponents of the proposal will try to get the word out without “gigantic checks,” said KC Mayor Quinton Lucas.
“But I don’t pretend to think that will necessarily win the day,” Lucas said.
At issue is a question that will appear on Missouri voters’ Aug. 6 primary ballot as “Amendment 4.” It asks whether the Missouri Constitution should be amended to require Kansas City to spend at least 25% of its general revenue on policing, an increase of close to $39 million.
Missouri voters previously approved the spending hike with 63% of the vote in 2022. But the measure was unpopular with Kansas Citians. In the Jackson County portion of KC, more than 61% of voters rejected the amendment. It passed in Platte and Clay counties, which include suburban parts of KC.
Lucas sued the state’s auditor and secretary of state, saying a summary printed on voters’ ballots “materially misstated” the cost of the proposal. He prevailed, and the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the election results be tossed out and a new vote be held.
The police funding dispute stems from the KC City Council’s attempt in 2021 to impose some control over the KC Police Dept. budget.
For more than 80 years, the KCPD has been controlled not by the city council but by a board of commissioners appointed by Missouri’s governor. The only city in the state and one of few in the nation that doesn’t control its police, KC simply provides the funds for the department.
While the city was obligated between 1958 and 2022 to provide the funding requested by the board — up to 20% of the city’s general revenue — it has little control over how it is spent.
The city has often exceeded its 20% obligation.
But following racial justice protests that took place in Kansas City — and across the nation — in 2020, city council members attempted to set aside $42 million in police funding above its obligatory spending for “community engagement, outreach, prevention, intervention and other public services.”
The move was criticized by Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly who voted to increase KC’s obligation to 25% of its revenue.
“Kansas City’s short-sighted move to defund the KCPD, if attempted again, will have lasting and dangerous consequences for our metro area,” state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer said in a committee hearing in 2022, when the amendment was approved by lawmakers.
Luetkemeyer, who lives in the KC suburbs, carried the legislation in 2022 to increase the city’s police spending obligations. He did not return a request for comment.
The 2022 legislation passed the Missouri General Assembly on a largely party-line vote with Republicans supporting the increased police spending and Democrats opposing it.
Lucas said voting no was the “only common sense solution.”
Residents of Kansas City, he said, should be the ones to determine the policy direction of the city by electing local representatives. He said one year the council may need to increase police salaries and the next it may need to spend money on other needs, like firefighting.
“Who should tell you that, ‘No, you can’t actually take care of your firefighters; you can’t take care of the nurses in your public hospital because you have to live by whatever Jefferson City is doing just for pure political pandering?’” Lucas said.
Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2, called the attempt by state lawmakers to force KC to spend 25% of its revenue on policing “a political ploy.”
“Why do you care what our police department has or doesn’t have?” McDonald said. “It’s not your business. It’s not your money.”
Lucas said there was “no organized campaign” to persuade voters to reject the amendment.
Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the issue to go on the August ballot rather than the November one, giving supporters and opponents just over two months to mobilize voters.
According to Missouri Ethics Commission records, no spending committees have been organized to advocate for or against Amendment 4, and no independent groups have spent money in the race.