Missouri voted to increase funding for police in Kansas City last Tuesday. This is the second time in two years that voters passed Amendment 4, which raised the minimum threshold for funding the Kansas City Police Department.
This second vote occurred after Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas filed a lawsuit and the state Supreme Court ordered a new vote on the constitutional amendment.
This measure was first put to vote in November 2022, and per local NPR affiliate, “every county in Missouri passed the ballot measure, except for the city of St. Louis and the Kansas City portion of Jackson County.”
But after the 2022 vote, the Missouri Supreme Court ended up ruling this April that the wording on the ballot was misleading due to the language which said that it would not increase spending by the city. The court held “that Amendment 4’s fiscal note summary, the last line voters read before choosing ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ was ‘so materially misstated’ that it ‘actually misled voters’ and the only remedy was to order a new election.”
This time around, the ballot listed that “it could cost the city up to $38 million a year but also points out the city is already funding the department at what that new minimum level would be of 25% instead of 20.”
Lucas argues that it impedes the ability of the city to find solutions in conjunction with the police, and wants to avoid ceding more control to the state over local authorities.
Amendment 4 advocates want more money for the department to help officers to be able to carry out their duties. Legislators who helped pass the bill to get the measure on the ballot wanted to avoid efforts to “defund” the department; however, there has been no evidence that any city officials have even tried to cut the police budget. Ironically enough, they don’t even have the power to do so.
Of note, “Kansas City is the only city in Missouri — and one of the largest in the U.S. — that does not have local control of its police department. Instead, a state board oversees the department’s operations, including its budget,” the Associated Press reports.
The St. Louis Police Department used to also be under the state’s control, but a 2012 vote by the state returned oversight of the department to the city.
The day after the vote, Mayor Lucas insinuated that there was a possibility about an introduction of a rival amendment “that stands for local control in all of our communities.”
“We consider this to be a major local control issue,” Urban League of Greater Kansas City president Gwen Grant stated. “We do not have control of our police department, but we are required to fund it.”
“Cities that have shown major impact on gun violence have invested in root causes, they’ve invested in mental health, they’ve invested in economic development and distressed communities, education, job training, livable wage options for people with restorative practices for people who’ve been incarcerated,” said Grant. “There’s so many different things that we could be investing in.”