We'll get started.

Welcome to business session for February 5th, 2026.

Our first item is approval of minutes for business session for January 15th.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Second.

All in favor indicate by saying I'm all opposed?

Aye.

Motion passes our uh presentation.

Will come today from Kansas City's police department.

Welcome the chief of police.

I'm sorry.

It's on.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for having me.

And I have with me Major Josh Hinen of our fiscal division.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

I'd say prepared for sure.

I just want to say thank you so much for having me here this afternoon.

I appreciate the opportunity to address the council, Mr.

Mayor, City Council, City Manager.

I'm here today to provide information regarding KCPD's reduction in overtime, supplies and equipment purchases, and a temporary pause on most professional staff positions.

Although KCPD will be implementing cost saving reductions, there will be no disruption of police services in Kansas City.

We will continue to prioritize our city's policing needs.

KCPD call takers will be answering 911 calls.

Our officers will be responding to calls for service, and detectives will continue investigating cases.

Implementing cost saving reductions in the remaining months of a fiscal year is not uncommon.

Last Thursday's internal email message is nothing new to KCPD, specifically at this time of year.

We diligently monitor our budget throughout the year and we make needed adjustments.

In fact, after I was advised of projected overages after the second quarter of this year's budget, I messaged out an immediate 25 production 25% reduction in overtime.

After review of the third quarter projection, last week's internal message was sent out to approximately 1,600 employees.

Last week's internal message was sent out taking a stronger stance in additional cost saving measures as we approach the end of our fiscal year, which, as we know, is April 30th.

At no time did I ever propose cutting essential police services.

Our internal messaging of spending reductions was purely to ensure we are doing all we can to minimize costs and make every attempt to make budget by April 30th.

As chief of police, I stay well informed of our budget and I monitor it throughout the year.

In full transparency, KCPD is currently 1.5 million over our overtime expenses.

We are projecting that number to potentially grow to 3 million before the end of the fiscal year.

To put it in perspective, this budget was originally prepared in the fall of 2024, 17 months ago, and has managed to uh and has been managed to within less than one percent under circumstances of growing personnel and all the added costs associated with personnel, achieving positive trends in crime statistics, resolving legacy claims, and adopting practices and training to mitigate future claims.

Which I would not characterize as a crisis.

The most impactful contributing factors are attributed to staffing shortages, settlements, and needed deployment of officers in areas throughout our city.

I will provide detail of the leading contributing factors and advise what KCPD is already doing to address current and future budgetary trends.

KCPD's total amount of allowable police officers or swarm positions is 1,408.

At last check, we have 1,211 law enforcement physicians filled.

Our current budget funds 1,258.

We are still approximately 197 officers short.

We are making great strides in recruiting at KCPD, which has resulted in larger classes.

We just started a 50-person recruit class last week, and that is the largest class we've had since 2007.

Our next class starts May 4th and another in August.

We are working and making progress on our staffing, but at times we need officers to work overtime to cover unfilled shifts.

KCPD has made great strides in staffing our communications unit.

For years, our call takers were understaffed, and our training needed refresh.

We've revamped our training, brought in contract workers, and we also trained current members working in other positions to staff 911 call taker positions.

This resulted in a significant overtime cost, but also a reduced time for people calling 911 for help.

In our current budget, we requested 20 additional unfunded, 20 additional unfunded full-time positions to grow the outdated staffing number in our communications unit.

Knowing we needed more call takers to answer the volume of 911 calls we receive, we continue to hire beyond our funded positions.

We are well into staffing our unfunded call taker positions.

We currently employ eight call takers in our unfunded positions to ensure when someone in Kansas City calls 911, there is a person to answer the call.

Our budget has had to absorb the overtime to cover shifts and needed unfunding staffing of additional call takers.

KCPD received general fund allocations for settlements.

Any costs that exceed the budget amount must come out of other budgetary budgetary categories.

As a result of absorbing this cost, we've had to sacrifice equipment purchases, needed upgrades, and divert funds from unfilled positions.

To minimize future risk resulting in settlements, I have professionalized the human resources division, replacing sworn commanders with professional career HR staff with experienced employee relations, employment law, workers' comp, etc.

I have added constitutional policing for the second year in a row for all sworn members, as I promised the community that I would.

This in addition to yearly implicit bias, de-escalation, due to intervene, crisis intervention, and even driver's training for sworn members.

I also brought in a law expert to provide instruction to all commanders to ensure they're providing adequate oversight of investigations.

This budget year, KCPD has and will continue to prioritize policing needs in Kansas City.

KCPD has deployed officers in various ways to ensure our cities provide the best policing service.

This past year, KCPD has focused on reducing both property crime and violent crime.

Our members have diligently worked property crimes, patterns, and cases, a predatory towing case with over 40,000 documents.

We've deployed extra officers in several locations throughout the city, and I will list those now.

We've conducted street racing operations, weekly entertainment plans, No Kings protests from two separate events, various other protest-related events, traffic funeral escorts, 11th and grand crime reduction, 3.1 and prospect crime reduction, 35 and prospect crime reduction, 59 and prospect crime reduction, 80th in truce crime reduction, Brookside Waldo Crime Reduction, Crossroads Downtown River Market Crime Reduction, Watts Mill Area South Patrol Crime Reduction, Police Athletic League Center staffing, and also detention staffing, and those are just to name a few.

We have conducted two one-week-long violent crime initiatives that resulted in the arrest of over 100 subjects for violent crimes and or active warrants.

Our detectives have successfully solved cases, resulting in an above the national average clear clearance rate for the second year in a row.

KCBD has worked side by side with city officials on the legal gaming operations, in addition to other city outreach efforts, as we should.

These efforts involve overtime and officers working above and beyond their regular duty hours.

Although there has been a monetary cost for additional police services, we have made great progress together.

Our combined efforts, including KCPD, city officials, and community members have resulted in reductions in crime across most categories in Kansas City over the past year.

We have positive forward momentum internally at KCPD and in our city.

We have every intention of continuing that momentum, working side by side with city council, all city departments, and the Kansas City community.

From the beginning of my tenure as chief of police, our fiscal division invites each city council member to review and go over our budget early in the process each year.

Over the past three years, each one of you has taken us up on that invitation, and to that I say thank you.

Also, that invitation is open all year, not just during budget season.

To the extent that there are questions about where and how expenses were incurred and paid relative to appropriations, the council and public can rely on the annual independent audit of the department's financials.

This is in addition to the monthly forecasts included in the public board reports.

And I encourage communication, invite you all to a monthly board of public board of police commissioners meeting where our executive command staff presents our progress progress in key indicators, budget, challenges, and also showcasing the great work of the men and women serving Kansas City.

And lastly, as most of you know by experience, I am just a short I phone call away, or I will walk across the street.

I'm responsible to calls from city council, the city manager, and the mayor.

If I'm unable to answer the phone at some time, you know I call you back.

I'll call you back when I can, and ensure that you have diligent, competent, and responsive staff assigned right here at City Hall to assist you and your constituents in policing needs or services.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to be heard and provide an in-person update, and I'm available for any questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Questions from the council.

Councilman Duncan.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Chief, thank you for being here today.

Um in your testimony just now, you stated that settlements are a leading contributor, contributing factor to this budget crisis, and you listed a number of solutions you've implemented to prevent those settlements.

However, you did not state anything about holding officers accountable.

So what have you done to discipline or eliminate officers who repeatedly have lawsuits resulting in settlements against them?

Any time that there is a disciplinary issue that is addressed, and we have a centralized system called the the disciplinary accountability and division.

We have a cut we have a division dedicated solely for making sure that we are accountable and transparent.

We have we know there are officers on the force who have millions of dollars repeated settlements against them who can't even police in Jackson County because the prosecutor won't take the cases.

What are we doing about those officers?

I'm aware of what specific uh case that you are speaking of, and unfortunately, because it's a personnel issue, I'm I am unable to discuss that, but I wish that I could.

Uh, overall, as a general message of of the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department, that those are those trainings.

We do uh spot checks on our body worn cameras.

There's a lot of things that we have in place to make sure that we are um staying on top of any type of issue that that would arise, such as what you described.

Would you state that the level of settlements that KCPD is paying, which is coming out of the money that this council provides?

Um, would you say that that's adequate and sustainable?

Um, you know, this is actually somewhat of a bigger year for lawsuits, and I think as time goes on, nationally there's a trend where some of those lawsuits are um resulting in in larger settlement larger numbers, to be perfectly honest.

Um, whether it's sustainable, it depends on year to year and what cases you you have going forward.

The cases that we experienced this year date all the way back from uh I think the earliest one we had was 2018.

Well, actually, I I take that back.

There was a case that was one of our most significant, and that was from the 1990s.

What do you think it says to this large recruiting class that we have today about conduct and behavior expected out of them when we have officers with a repeated violent history who have millions of dollars of repeated settlements against them who are allowed to remain on the force?

What do you think that says to them?

I I can tell you what I tell our new recruits.

I address every recruit class.

I let them know what our expectations are, and that they represent the Kansas Missouri Police Department, past, present, and obviously they are the future.

Uh, that their conduct affects and has has not only effect on Kansas City, Missouri, but also law enforcement profession as a whole.

I tell them that they are held to a high standard that when they are uh provided the oath of office on the front steps of police headquarters, that they are taking the responsibility of the um the great obligation that they have to make sure that they they live by incur by integrity and courage and compassion here, and that's what my expectation is for those officers.

I think what it tells them, regardless of the words, which I agree with, the impact is the same that regardless of your behavior and how you present yourself, your conduct on the force, you'll be allowed to be a police officer in KCPD.

What's that a question?

It's a statement.

I would disagree.

Other questions?

Councilwoman Robinson.

Um thank you.

Um, I also uh would like to say uh really appreciate your uh presence um not only here, but you had mentioned some of the critical things that have happened in the third district where we've been able to depend upon um the police to be able to respond to issues um specifically on 35th in prospect and on 31st in prospect.

And so when we look at this uh memo that went out, um it does cause from a level of alarm and concern because the myth momentum and the change that we're seeing as it relates to the presence, we want it to continue, and we want to be able to depend upon when we need the police, that the police will show up uh for example.

So I'm I'm more interested in the differentiation in terms of overtime, right?

Because you're saying according to what we received, and um I didn't authenticate this document, but um it talks about not critical to basic operations is suspended.

So when we were working with at the grocery store and addressing some of the issues, um, and the police were there making sure that that uh people could shop you know peacefully.

We just had the the the incident at uh the fast food restaurant where someone was um killed.

Yes, which that case is solved and that person is in custody.

Thank you.

Yes, um, thank you.

And I I just happened to be driving by and saw the police response, and so when I see, oh you know, no overtime, I'm thinking, how is that going to impact my constituents?

How is that going to impact response for service?

Are we going to be able to call KCPD and say, hey, we have a hot spot, we need additional support.

Can you tell us about what we should be expecting there?

So I think I think what drew attention to this internal message was the use of drastic.

I think that yeah kind of spun a lot of what we're seeing.

Yes.

What I and really that was because I needed to use a stronger um a stronger voice in making sure like I hey, I'm letting you know we really need to cut back on unnecessary overtime.

Now, before that, I I asked for a 25% reduction.

Uh it didn't move the needle quite as as much as we needed it to, because we're still trying to make budget.

Um in that it'll it'll it says that there it does say that we're cutting overtime.

But there is overtime that is allowable.

But there was there was other overtime that we could cut back on.

The the overtime that's allowable is if we are short officers, we are make sure that our ships are filled.

If there is some kind of um situation that we need to address and we need to deploy officers in that area, that's something that we will evaluate and and send officers that way.

We've been very responsive, and I will also tell you I got this question.

Uh this affects the third district.

Uh East Patrol was is set to get a new proactive problem solving squad in March.

This is not affecting that.

Those officers will still be it's that would be an officer or excuse me, a sergeant and six officers.

That will still take place.

And the more officers we get, the less uh the less I think that we will use overtime.

I mean, you know, like the more officers you get, but um the more officers we're putting through the academy, you know, there's also overtime that's involved in that where we we uh we give some of our recruits extra training at the end of the day, or also when we we put them through their testing phases, there's a lot of overtime that's involved in that.

And um, so so this is an example of how how we are um making sure that we're doing what we need to do.

So the academy, they're gonna hold their their testing during the day, and they're gonna um get other officers throughout the department to come there while they're on duty instead of overtime to be actors for the for the for the scenarios.

So these are just some of the um you know the creative ways that that we're trying to reduce some of our costs so we can try to make budget and reduce as much of our overages as we can before the April 30th deadline.

Okay, the other thing is you you mentioned okay, staffing settlements and deployment of officers doing um shifts that um you mentioned deployment of officers.

Yes, so with the did you say you were 197 officers down?

Yes.

If you yes, if when you compare it to 1408, is what we would we would be fully staffed at.

Of course, we're not funded for 1,408, nor would I ask for 1,408 to be funded if I didn't think that we can get those numbers.

Okay, which is again appreciative.

I I want to make the help, I want to you to help us understand the correlation between unfunded positions and the settlements.

If we had less settlements, would we be able to afford more officers?

Or how does the settlements play into the budgetary concerns?

It plays more into what expenses we have to cut, like you know, uh to cover some of our settlements this year.

Uh because we we don't have a um an uh legal fund that's outside of of our general fund appropriations.

You don't.

We don't.

That's it.

So our lawsuits are are baked in to our total uh budget.

Which which I write which that's that's why we are experiencing um the situation that we're in right now.

But but for the amount um you know, for the for the the settlements that that we have um covered this year, we've made cuts like there was um you know some audio visual equipment that we needed to replace at the academy and at police headquarters, we just we weren't able to do that.

That's what we do.

We make hard cuts like that.

But and now um, you know, with with this additional overtime, those things that I mentioned of the locations that we've deployed extra officers, that was overtime because some of those areas needed more policing.

Yeah, we needed more of a presence, uh, whether that was engagement, uh, presence or enforcement.

We needed to be in some of those areas.

And I want to continue that, but but I'm just saying, like some of that this year, it's just been a tough year for us.

We have not came back to um the council uh since I think you said since you've been the mayor for additional appropriations, and unfortunately, we are um at one of those places where there's nothing more that that we have on the table that we can sacrifice uh to try to make budget, but we are sacrificing a lot of our overtime.

But we're finding creative ways to still get the job done.

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Um so let me just make sure I'm clear.

You don't have a line item for settlements in your budget.

You want to explain that?

We do have a line item for settlements in our budget.

Um oftentimes the settlements exceeded.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We do have a line item in our budget for settlements, um, and oftentimes those settlements exceed that line item.

We try to prepare for that and try to preemptively um make sure we have enough funding available, like in this fiscal year, but sometimes the settlements exceed what is in there, and so we have to find um places in our budget outside of that line item to to be able to pay for those settlements within that fiscal year.

But but that line item is within our 25 percent.

Correct.

It is within our general fund.

Okay, yeah, I well, and I just want to make sure it kind of sounded like there was there was nothing there in the legal fund, and I'm like, okay, that's that's a governance issue that needs to be um addressed.

And then finally, and you talked about the constitutional policing, um the and then the legal experts that you're having.

Can you drill down on how that is uh directly impacting the settlements um and um just making sure that those things that you're deploying, which we haven't seen in the past, and we appreciate that we're you know putting more effort into preventing the settlements, but how are we seeing changes based off of those those um new strategies you're deploying?

So w all of those strategies are really in the prevention phase.

Um and some of the the settlements that that we're experiencing right now are uh like I said, pre-date pre-date that.

Um so this is uh setting KCPD up uh for the future.

Yeah, but are you monitoring it um to to measure its impact, I guess.

So um I guess I I are you I I see what you I see what you mean.

Um we just got our human resources online in 2025.

It took a lot took quite a bit to find um a person, the right person uh out the the right compensation to come in and take over human resources.

We have a fantastic person, we have a great uh employee relations manager.

Um I think it's too early to tell, but by by way we could we could measure some of that is looking at uh some of the officer or the opposite community complaints uh data.

Um also looking at any of those lawsuits that would be coming in or your or um filings that would be coming in in the in the in the this past year, I'd say.

Um we will definitely be monitoring that and and you know, like like what we do, you know, if we see some kind of trends or something like that, uh we'll we're gonna jump in and and feel the need wherever that that arises.

Yeah, we'll be monitoring that, yes.

One last quick question, Mr.

Mayer.

I do want to address the elephant in the room, in that what that is, what would you say to those who might be thinking that you know this message is more of a uh budgetary uh strategy.

Well, so we're coming up on our but releasing the budget, um, and this might be a strategy to help to um seek additional funds beyond the 25%.

Can you just kind of speak to that, like in terms of the timing of this going um out right before?

So um I I have been asked this question was this intentional?

I it's getting close to the end of the budget cycle.

I I'm in involved and have no intent in any plots or ploys to uh put anyone in a negative budgetary position.

Um that's just not what I do.

But as a leader of KCPD, uh coming up in this organization almost 29 years now, this is not anything new.

Um but I think it was a strong language that was put in at this time.

I'm not I'm this was in no means anything other than telling our folks, hey, we need to tighten it up because we're trying to make budget because we're over.

Like I appreciate all the hard work that that our men and women have done.

Um, and you really have a good police department um and they've really been working hard for you.

But you know, we just we need to make sure that when we do take overtime, it's it's it's needed and it's justified.

Thank you.

Thank you for your questions.

Councilman Willet.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh thank you, Chief, for being here, and thank you, board president, for being here as well.

Um first question I have um since we're talking about finances.

Have we turned down anyone who wants to join our police department because of finances?

Not because of finances, no, and we won't to include our call takers.

Okay.

Um so I I've heard three different themes of of maybe uh what we've kind of maybe changed in terms of finances.

One overtime, two uh settlements, three equipment.

It seems like equipment is being what's or upgrades or is what's being sacrificed for the other two.

Um pro overtime being prioritized settlements is something that's obviously have to be um paid for.

Um I want to start off with settlements.

How much did you guys ask for from last budget year and settlements, and how much did we give you all?

Um this current fiscal year that we're in right now, we received uh 2.5 million dollars in that budgetary general fund settlement category.

Um to this point, we have paid out roughly 10.9 million dollars.

10 point nine and then so I understand that you're sacrificing equipment to go and pay back some of those settlements.

How did you guys request 2.5 million for settlements or do you guys request something higher than that?

Um we requested higher than that, um, but again, that's part of that budgetary conversation that we have every fiscal year.

Um, and so we had had to move some, like the chief referred to, move things around between budgetary categories to make that work.

Okay, of the 10.9 million, how many or how much of that is from wrongful convictions settlements?

Yeah, there's there's one wrongful conviction case rolled up into there.

It's a structured settlement over multiple years because the impact of that was too great for one fiscal year.

So that's okay, that's being planned out, and it's a hundred percent of that uh settlement is to Kansas City Police Department.

Is any of it revolved with uh prosecutor's office?

The prosecutor has an immunity that we are not that's not shared with okay.

Um and then want to get over to the um overtime conversation, and I agree with uh my colleague from the third district.

I want to prioritize overtime in that area, and a lot of times, you know, representing the Northland were having a fewer amount of officers, but we I do know this the less that they have to go answer a call south of the river, the more that their staff down south of the river, the more likely we are to actually have people stay up in the northland, and so I want to continue to prioritize um overtime for folks.

Um a lot you mentioned a lot of different you talked about grand, you talked about certain cross streets of prospect.

Um didn't we as a council put about a million dollars for entertainment district overtime?

Is that something that was added to your budget to help um for this year?

Um there was a a public safety sales tax uh allocation that was within this fiscal year for security within the downtown corridor um and entertainment districts.

Um to my knowledge, that was not added to our budget for overtime services related to the the the overtime that we were providing for those areas.

Okay, so that did not translate into what we intended to as a council.

Okay.

Um the um other thing I I want to ask is um so do you see with we had the largest class since 2007, which is amazing, and congratulations.

Thank you.

Um everyone on the board of police commissioners to Chief to everyone.

That's that's awesome.

That's what we want to see.

We're heading in the right direction in that number.

So this is that's fantastic.

Do you see um the continued kind of interest you could forecast academy classes like that into the future?

Yes, we have um at least 44 already in the process for the May class.

Wow.

So, yes, I do.

Um, and that I'm gonna be honest too.

Like, there was some some overtime usage in our human resources division.

Um we process hundreds of police officer candidates to get a 50 person class.

Um sometimes that bottleneck comes in the the background investigation, and to to clear up some of that that uh that bottleneck, we make sure that we're we have people on staff to really thoroughly look at backgrounds before we hire someone on as a KCPD.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Ran.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um Chief, your the memo that you sent to staff said there are multiple factors which led to this budgetary imbalance, and then earlier today you testified that your uh 1.4 million to three million over budget, or is that that's what you're projecting?

Right now we're 1.5.

If we were to continue on the trajectory that we were prior to that that an internal message going out over email over to like 1,600 of our employees, um, we were projected to be at 3 million over by April 30th.

So as of right now, 1.5 million over budget, and is that the extent of the budgetary imbalance that you're referencing in your communication to the department?

Yes.

Okay.

Um and forward going.

Yeah.

Out of that 1.5 million, uh, well, let me take a step back.

So you've you've you said there are multiple factors which have led to the imbalance, and so far I've heard you talk about, and I think Councilman Willet broke it down to these categories as overtime uh settlements and equipment.

Is there are there other factors outside of those three that are contributing to the imbalance?

Uh overtime settlements, unfilled positions, and some of and and we've moved some of our equipment purchases, so that's some of the things that we weren't we weren't able to do.

Okay.

And uh those being the factors that are contributing to this, can you help me understand the extent to which each one of those factors contributes to the 1.5 million?

So for instance, uh how much of that 1.5 million is caused by the overtime issue versus settlements versus the other factors.

You want to take that one?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um every month, you know, at our we're we're one of the the few city entities that every month speaking on that.

Yeah, every month our budgetary transfers um are at a public board meeting, so everybody can see the money that we move around with in our budget to make this work.

Um to answer your question, there are times where we have to you know take money out of maybe an equipment category to then pay for a settlement, and so but it's equipment that maybe we necessarily need necessarily we have to have in that fiscal year, so we have to move money to move stuff around to make that work, and so that's how it hits all of those categories.

And if if we do some hiring, like if we have to pay a settlement mid-year, let's say, and we have some unfilled positions, and so we use some salary savings to be able to pay that settlement later on in the fiscal year, we're able to fill those positions, then that's something we have to take from a different budgetary category, and that's how it hits those multiple categories that you're referring to.

Okay, and how have they each contributed to the budget shortfall?

Just that is it's you know, s settlements obviously is a big contributing factor.

Um that's that's a lot of money to make up in a fiscal year and try to find that savings for.

Um, and so if we have to take the savings out of an equipment category, but we still need whether it's a software and equipment later on in the fiscal year, and we have to take the money out of a different category, maybe it's an overtime category, or maybe it's a salary savings category, so that's how they all um together contribute to that deficit that is currently existing within our overtime category.

But I do know one of those um equipment purchases was about two million dollars.

So if that if you're trying to put a number on like on um where we're taking some of those, how it's how it's affected uh some of the categories that that you mentioned, um, and correct me if I'm wrong, Josh.

Uh you know, one of those just for an example it was was taking two million dollars out of an equipment purchase category that was um obviously earmarked for an important project.

You know, we had to forego that to make sure that we were continuously um not working beyond or covering some of those expenses basically.

Um let me try and ask it this way.

Uh out of the factors you've listed as contributing to the budget shortfall, which is the greatest contributor to the budget shortfall?

No, it'd be settlements.

Okay, and then after that.

After that, it'd probably be overtime.

Okay.

It's our members, yeah.

Got it.

Um, you know, I know the settlements can be difficult to track, you don't know what a judge or jury is gonna do.

You don't know what settlement you're gonna reach with the other side.

You what recommendations do you have for more certainty around handling these moving forward?

And and you know, I'll I'll get in some questions about what we're doing from uh training HR uh perspective, but from a budgetary perspective, you know, how do we instill more certainty in this from year to year so that we don't continue to have a larger amount of settlements than even your requesting a budget for?

So we can somewhat project uh how much we may need in in the coming year, um, this based on some of the filings that we're aware of.

Uh, but some of those can come up and um and you know, come up for a mediation or a trial, and so you you don't necessarily have control over whatever that timeline is.

Um, you know, it's just like that uh 1990s case that we mentioned earlier, um, you know, just trying to project that that was gonna come up next year, you know, when just for an example, that's why I mentioned that this budget was put together in the fall of 2024, which is 17 months ago.

Um, so so there's a little bit of um a little bit of unpredictability in some of those settlements, but we try to um project the best that we can.

And I know that that was a a call um uh last year to make sure that we were being more transparent with counsel when with whatever that number may be.

Yeah, I I think the health and wellness folks do a great job.

Um, you know, I think their goal of helping officers who experience traumatic events get proper mental health treatment and address issues they might be having that could result in a bad decision or an excessive use of force, um, so on and so forth.

I think they do good work there.

From what I understand, they don't have their own budget.

In fact, I've gone into my own council budget to host luncheons and breakfast so that they could have more exposure with officers and get more folks rolled in.

Um I would suggest uh if we were spending less on settlements and less on the health and wellness component, we would probably see less of a need for settlements moving forward.

And I don't know if you have plans for carving out a budget for them in the future, but I think it might be a good idea.

Thank you for that.

We've um we've supplemented some of their efforts with the police foundation.

Um we've also grown that team over the past year uh just because of that of that need, and um you know, just making sure that officers are good when they're going out to serve others.

Absolutely.

I I appreciate you bringing that to the attention.

I I think they could use the budget, honestly, um, and it would be a better use than settlements.

I agree.

So um switching to overtime, I think overtime issues in any organization can be a result of mismanagement, can be a result of lack of staffing because the less folks you have working, the more hours are gonna have to pick up, or uh even a greater demand on the service being provided.

And um, you know, I went on several of the ride-alongs with the streetcar uh enforcement, and it was fairly large.

I think probably all those folks were working overtime hours that happened multiple weekends uh a month from April to November.

You had the entertainment district plan, you were responding to needs at 31st and prospect.

Um I get that you know, those were all things that community leaders or council members or combination of both asked for.

You know, we pressed hard for a response and enforcement on street takeovers.

Um our colleagues in the third district for months pushed hard on a response to 31st and prospect.

Um, and so that is a need that you all responded to that probably created more overtime.

My question is did we budget for some of these things, entertainment plan, street racing enforcement at the beginning of the year so that we were building it into the budget, and if not, how are we gonna handle that in this coming budget?

So we do try to plan for for those events that we know that are gonna happen.

Um, you know, like with three first 31st and prospect, there's gonna be some hot spots is what we call them, pop up throughout our city, and we want to make sure that we have the the folks to deploy.

Um we do project overtime usage, and I think we requested um more in this budget coming forward.

Yeah, we did.

We requested more in this upcoming budget to try to cover that gap.

Um, you know, oftentimes that as a police agency, we we are reactive to the hot spots and the things that pop up within the community.

And so the unfortunately those things aren't planned for, but we do have to respond, and so we try to make sure we have enough cushion within that category to be able to cover cover that expense.

And it's every intention of mine to continue to be as responsive as we have been.

If you if you need um someone, if if there's something going on, um, you know, again, we can talk about the street racing, you know, that was getting uh really dangerous on our streets, uh, specifically in in heavily uh populated or pedestrian traffic uh side streets in the downtown corridor.

You know, I want to make sure that our department is set up to continue to respond and be as responsive as we have this last year, because it does show results.

Um, you know, some of the street racing operations, some of those officers are adjusting their hours and some of them are on overtime because it takes so many officers to address large crowds that we found ourselves in.

You know, there were times where two officers responding and they just got surrounded.

You know, so so different operations um dictate how many officers that that we need to respond to those, but I want to continue to be be responsive.

Um and I'm and in no way am I sitting up here saying, well, you had all these asked, so we responded.

I'm not saying that.

If there's a need in the city, if there's a policing need, I want to respond to it.

In fact, I don't want to respond, I want to prevent it first.

But if it's something that needs a response, you're gonna have Kansas City Missouri Police Department step up and make sure that if there's some kind of hot spot popping up in Kansas City, um, we're gonna do everything that we can to to calm it down.

Yeah.

I had a point in uh I want to say about July where a neighborhood resident in Midtown reached out and said, you know, for the first time in a long time they've been able to sleep with their windows open because of the reduction in street racing and you know all the chaos wasn't gone completely, and it still happened from time to time, but it was a very different situation, and that was because of overtime and um enforcement.

I I very much dislike the idea that there is a scenario where we can't do some of those things because of how settlements are impacting.

And I I can accept um strains imposed by overtime because you're meeting a demand and and uh a public safety issue that we have asked you to address, um, but we don't leave ourselves a lot of wiggle room when we are um you know uh having to having to appropriate so much for settlements.

And I I know you understand that uh I I I hope that you all will continue to address it, but I think we need to keep saying it because you know that can be one thing that that would probably be the last thing that any resident would want to spending uh public safety dollars on.

I agree with you 100%, Chief.

I'm gonna hop in to the questions, and I'll try to make my inquiry more related to both the transparency issue and governance.

I'll start and preface by saying I think you're a good chief and you're doing a fine job, and so my questions um you know aren't aren't meant to undermine that.

That being said, on the transparency issue, and I did note in your introduction, you noted we could come to any public meeting, we could learn about budget issues.

We had a Board of Police Commissioners meeting two days before this memorandum was circulated to the department.

There was not a public discussion on the budget issues.

We don't actually, other than amendments of several hundred thousand dollars per, we do not regularly at Board of Police Commissioners meetings talk about I think the more serious budget issues.

One can come and see an amendment on a piece of equipment or all of that, but we're getting $500,000 ordinances, not assessments on us being behind an overtime.

And I would encourage that to be shared a bit more broadly.

I'll be even more honest because we're in honest space.

I did not love that there was a 100 million dollar memo that came out from the manager's office to other staff before city council was updated.

It blindsided us.

We ought to answer for it.

People were wondering why the city was grown going broke, but something I'll appreciate was that we had that discussion months before we would get to the next budget, months before we'd be asked to do anything in connection with the budget.

And I don't think we're getting that same opportunity here.

What we're kind of being told is here we are, it got to this point, and and that's that's how it is.

I'll I'll I'll note one other thing, and I understand and I understand it, but I've been asking the same question for a lot of years about settlements, and major we did have a back and forth at last year's budget hearing, uh, and I have a news story, that's the only reason I I have our quotes.

I asked, is your settlement an out um amount enough to handle lawsuits for the next year?

3.5 million dollars.

You said it's a reasonable amount.

Two months later, the Board of Police Commissioners settled one case for 14 million dollars two months later.

And I couldn't talk about it at the time, but the way things tend to work is that these cases are filed years before we do some level of negotiation.

I would assume that someone at the department knew that we were staring down the barrel of a very significant settlement that if we were to agree to it could blow a hole in our budget or blow a hole in our budgets for years in advance.

That wasn't the only one.

I believe we had an employment verdict, so distinct from wrongful deaths, which will be expensive, wrongful incarceration, excessive force, which is one category.

We've also had employment cases, and and the unfortunate thing about our employment cases is that those are often much more recent issues that happen in not just the late 20 teens but the early 2020s with which we do.

So I promise I'll get to a question, Chief, which is um to the questions that have arisen a few different times.

Uh how do we how do we know to believe what we're getting in connection with the settlements?

And I'll just say this the way that an agency or business, probably the board chairs and many others is you look at all your liability at the beginning of the year, and you recognize that you are looking at a lot.

I would submit that probably there's still some very serious lawsuits that we may face.

I won't get into them, it's not the place to do it.

I'm not supposed to do that.

But I do think that city council that's trying to understand when people are calling us and saying, I want an officer responding to 3-1 in prospect, I want this, that, and the other.

I think we need to understand what those types of costs may be.

How can we best get to that framework?

I think that your first point could also be somewhat of a similar answer to the your second.

If there was some way or some set up uh whether that be uh a meeting or some kind of uh communication that I would get the opportunity to do to address the city council and them ask me questions, whether it be something that uh whether if it was settlements and needed to be in a closed session, or um some other way that I could communicate, or or we um could communicate what those those needs are.

Um I will tell you, I am still this the way that it's trending, and I this is a nationwide, this isn't just necessarily Kansas City.

Um, usually, you know, in courtrooms, the police aren't usually looked upon fairly.

Um there are some of those situations where settlements you have to look at the risk overall uh of whether you take it to trial or you um uh provide relief for both the department and um the the person who is has has filed.

You know, those are those decisions that that we have to make, and um sometimes you can't necessarily project those uh too awful far in advance, but I I think that um should there be some kind of way that I can communicate that appropriately to the city council, then um I'm I'm I'm open for that, you know, especially when we look at where we're at right now with um gaining relief.

And if I could if I could just on the other point, um, you know, you know, if that was not communicated to you in a clear fashion, then then I will take ownership for that.

Um that being said, um we were trying to write the ship before we brought it to city council, because we're you know, we're we're 1.5.

This is this is my second attempt over at KCPD to try to get that that number down a bit, um, because we have over over however many years um been able to get that down and and um get to where it needed to be to make budget by April 30th.

Um, this with a couple of uh the large settlements, one of which you just mentioned, and um you know, as wanting to be responsive, I think that's why we're we're in the place we're in right now.

Um I would not characterize that as uh mismanagement.

Um I would characterize that as uh uh you know some unforeseen or maybe potentially planned uh uh circumstances, but maybe not necessarily really grasping um the depth of how much some of those settlements would have would were and how they affect us.

I'll say this.

I don't like them either.

I'll say this, and and thank you for that offer.

I think the city council would always be appreciative of closed session discussion, anything on litigation.

Um this is more a comment for my peers on the board of police commissioners, because I think that we're often writing checks we can't catch.

If we're settling cases for 14 million, five million, another five million, eight hundred thousand, the sorts of things, even if they're structured settlements, we are the board, which is not elected by the people of Kansas City save one, are making budgetary decisions prospectively for the people of Kansas City for a number of years.

And I would hope that at the very least, there's some level of information that comes in saying, yeah, each year we're going to bank for you three, four million dollars of liability before we've paid a single officer before we've bought a single piece of equipment.

And I think that will be worthwhile, and I think more discussion could be helpful.

Another area on, and and I and I do get the budget adjustments mid-year and the work that you do are important, and and that's uh that's true.

I've been here for 10 and a half years.

We have by council ordinance almost never done a mid-year budget adjustment, even back prior to 2020 and 2021.

Occasionally we talk about it, there might have been salary issues, usually be people, labor asking for some sort of pay increase and adjustment.

I remember that for my city council tongue.

Indeed, what I remember from mayor time in 2020, for example, the police department with our other departments, um, did a five percent reduction mid-year.

Part of that was because the city was in a financial strained place and beyond.

Um I guess I might ask on this one, what is different about this year?

Because I will note in the other years, 2020 being one such example, you had robust First Amendment activity.

You have had protests and parades, you've had policing in certain areas.

I believe you've done intervention in other areas.

Uh because we have been policing in the years past, so you've been a part of a lot of it.

Yes, I would say, just to answer that part, is the settlements, the additional deployment of officers and needed areas, and also covering some unfilled shifts.

Um there as I've been told, um in previous years, um, before you and I were in these seats, um, we did get some some relief from the city uh from the city manager.

Also, we're not um we are not uh offered any part of uh true up or uh rainy day fund or anything like that, as that um other city departments are able to access.

So that's why maybe that maybe for for for us, um, it's like this is how much money you get for the year, and that's it.

And so that's the urgency in some of the messages that I put out to reduce overtime, because uh we don't have a we haven't been able to um enjoy some of those uh th those reliefs.

And unfortunately, the way that we're trending right now, um that is we will be having this this conversation unless we're having that right now of uh seeking some relief.

And and I would say in some ways there's there's a trade-off, right?

You get much more guarantee as to your budget as compared to let's say a public works that may sustain a 20 million dollar cut next year, and I'll remind us that the citizens will get mad if we don't plow the streets or fill the potholes and all of that too.

So it it does cut both ways.

I may ask this other point.

You know, a while back we had a uh finance committee hearing on the road, and we were talking about, and this is just illustrative.

Um, do we still do with our traffic unit ins and outs escorts at Arrowhead Stadium?

And and those are on duty officers that are doing that at Royals and Casey Current.

Okay.

And some off-duty, and we do get some uh we too get some funds from the chief stadium, correct?

Yes, yes, okay.

The question, so therefore, there'd be some on duty as well.

Correct.

And so my question would be because I think perhaps to councilwoman Robinson's point, she would prefer you have policing at 3-1 in prospect or councilman Ray on the fourth district, may say uh sideshow intervention as compared perhaps to escorts at Arrowhead Stadium.

Maybe just saying theoretically.

Uh I understand that choice is yours, but when we have budget scarcity, and if the public is saying I'd rather have a complement of officers, 31st in prospect addressing these issues and paying for that as compared to paying for escorts at Arrowhead.

Uh, how do we make that choice and to what extent can we help inform that choice?

Well, I believe I I don't want to speak out of turn, but I believe our escorts are are actually paid.

That's an off-duty um overtime situation.

Um the ins and outs, that is something where we maybe that's where I'm confused.

What's an in and out?

Okay, the in and out.

I I I first of all, I like that you you call it what we call it, so I know exactly we're speaking the same same language.

That's getting traffic in and out of the case.

Traffic control of um of Arrowhead, you know, the beginning of the game, you know, just move in traffic, that way it doesn't cause a lot of a lot of issues.

Um the in and out or the cheese game, that's something that's an event in our city where we know there's going to be 70 to 80,000 people.

So any time we have a uh something like that going on on in our city, we will deploy on-duty resources.

And so that's how I I see that.

That is a preventative uh piece, but I do under I do hear you, and we've actually been in these conversations within the last 24 hours on this subject.

Perfect, because what I may ask to someone like, say, the Kansas City Chiefs, because the benefit of our free in and outs is actually a service largely to them.

Not that I don't love the people of Blue Ridge Cutoff and Stadium Drive and perhaps others who need to get through the city, but particularly there, they create the traffic concern, they benefit largely from the traffic.

There's they're charging 65 bucks a car, whatever it is now, and it would seem like if we were shifting expenses, rather than spending on any on duty there, we would ask them to say if you want good traffic escort in and out of your events, you can pay us, KCPD, to help provide it.

But now I'm getting a little into the weeds on how we do our cost savings, all of that.

But I think I would say rather than cutting overtime somewhere, or rather than perhaps dipping deeper into general revenues of the city, right?

Perhaps these are people who sit in a much better position to fund these things to benefit, frankly, their own profits long term.

I've gone for a little while.

You I appreciate the offer on the um litigation point, and I think Mr.

Mayor.

Councilman Bunch, then curls, the mayor pro Tim, then we'll come back around.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um yeah, I uh I want to go back for just a second on the the idea of keeping us better informed of potential litigation, uh potential settlements.

Um, you know, just as one of 13 people elected to represent the city it you know, we we we are informed of pending litigation when it comes to the fire department, and and we see some pretty pretty pretty ugly things uh in that process, fire department, water department, public course, any of those.

Um, but we don't we don't aren't afforded that same uh opportunity, and so it's uh a welcome uh suggestion uh to do some sort of close session to the extent that we're allowed to uh under our state and local law um because we we are the 13 people who are are expected to know these things.

Um and so when we find out of a you know 14 million dollar, eight million dollar, whatever million dollar settlement in the newspaper or from the board of commissioners uh uh minutes, it it makes honestly it makes us look like we don't know what's going on because sometimes we don't.

Um and understanding just the extent to which settlements have contributed to the budget shortfall this year, I think that is extra important going forward.

And so I would welcome uh yeah, some some improved cadence of communication, be it in a closed session or what have you, if it's if we're able to do that, that would be that would be incredibly valuable for our time and and just so that we have some sense for what's going on and can be prepared for when those when those settlements do come forward.

It also helps us to the mayor's point, it helps the budgeting process to understand you know, you're not always gonna know you're not always gonna know what's what kind of settlements you're up against in a given year.

However, some of these, as we know, have been dragging on for a while, and so we may have some sense for that.

So we can I think help with the budgeting issue as well.

Um and the last thing I'll say is is just thank you for honestly being here.

Um I've seen you and your role as a chief uh a lot in City Hall, and that means something to I I won't speak for my colleagues, but I think it does mean a lot to us to see you here and to see other leadership in the police department here.

Um, and also your willingness to answer the phone just this morning we talked on something kind of small uh uh but really impactful, and and so the responsiveness of the community has been has been it really important and taking a different approach to policing than what we experience, I think, in the in most of our first term um on this city council.

Uh uh my colleagues here are second termers anyway.

So I just wanted to leave with those words, just thank you for for everything, and um, but but there's still a lot of work to do and uh would appreciate uh appreciate uh some process to to have a regular check-in on these types of things.

Absolutely, and I'll talk to our office of general counsel to see exactly what the appropriate way is is to do that.

I'm sure there's some things um some nuances with that that I may not be aware of, but um not anything that we can't can't work through to do that in the appropriate way.

Great, thank you.

Councilman Curls.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor, Chief.

Thank you for being here as well.

I appreciate the opportunity uh to ask questions uh because this is a big concern uh once your memo came out, and I think a lot of my questions have been asked and answered, but I do have a couple of ones that I I'd like to get some answers to.

Uh under this year's budget that you guys have presented to us, what is the increase or what is the amount of the increase this year that you're asking for compared to last year?

Of the overall budget, overall budget.

It is well, so there's we've had a lot of conversations about the overall budget.

Um and it has changed a few different times what we presented to the board, what we presented to the city manager, and then kind of where we're I'm sorry, could you speak?

I'm sorry, what we presented to the board, what we presented to the city manager, and and where we're at now, um, I think with what the council may end up seeing.

And so I think right now um it's at roughly sixteen million dollar increase over the current fiscal year, and that is just general fund 16 million increase.

Yes, confirmed last year.

Okay.

And then um and and I don't know if this is appropriate or if this even is even feasible when it comes to settlements and the amount of settlements.

Um we as a council are not giving you enough money to address these settlements.

I don't even know if we have enough money to give you to address some of these settlements.

And maybe this is a question for the board of police commissioners.

Is there an opportunity or is there a way that maybe the state could help with some of this some of these settlements of uh some of the cost of these settlements, I guess?

So we do get one million dollars from the state of Missouri uh in relief with with uh settlements.

We do we just a million?

Yep.

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

Is there a way that I mean we could petition them to increase it because my in my mind um obviously the settlements are increasing.

Um, and there's no way that we as a city can keep up with that increase.

Uh we do not know about them and to the uh councilman bunch's point and and others that have spoken about having some type of meeting about some of those settlements to have that discussion anyway, I think would be helpful.

But is that something that the board of police commissioners would have to petition the state for in order to get an increase?

Uh yes, or our legal team, and some of those conversations have occurred.

Um, but uh I believe in statute that's that's what it is as of right now currently is the one million.

Okay, and then um I think uh my last question is um we have I guess a a state mandate of 25 percent that we already have to give you.

I think that we in the past have given you above the 25 percent.

Uh and that still was not enough to help offset any of this because of the settlements.

Is that primarily what I'm hearing?

Uh with with the budget that received and some of the um costs um that's causing the overage that that we're here to discuss today, yes.

Okay, and then I I guess one more question you mentioned equipment and overtime as well.

Is there any equipment that you guys have put off, and I think you mentioned one of them, uh, that is essential for you to do your job.

Yeah, MDCs.

No, um, I mean, we have put off it's gonna be well to answer your question.

It is not essential at the time that we uh um transfer those funds to pay for something else.

Um some of this stuff is aging equipment that we're trying to preventatively get ahead of.

There is gonna come a point in time where it is essential because a lot of it is software or hardware that the companies are gonna cease all support for, and at that point in time it will get essential.

Um the the mobile data computers in our cars, for example, um, it's something we've asked for for the last couple fiscal years.

Um unfortunately we're we didn't receive it or we had to transfer funds, um, but that's something that we're no longer gonna have support for here at the end of this year, and so it is becoming essential.

All right, thank you.

Mayor Protect.

Thank you, honorable mayor.

Uh, first of all, thank you for being here.

Um appreciate uh the um additional opportunity to really engage with you in this chamber as it when I first started, we didn't have uh this type of um collaboration or or communication between the council and KCPD.

So thank you first off.

I want to start off with questions about uh the lawsuits uh since uh it's been indicated that that is the primary cause of this structural imbalance.

How how have you and your team analyzed complaints that come in to the Office of Community Complaints, the lawsuits, the settlements?

How are you analyzing them to identify systemic failures versus isolated events and what changes have you made in regards to that?

about uh the lawsuits uh since uh it's been indicated that that is the primary cause of this structural imbalance how how have you and your team analyzed complaints that come in to the office of community complaints the lawsuits the settlements how are you analyzing them to identify systemic failures versus isolated events and what changes have you made in regards to that so we've looked at we looked at each case we and and like I said you know um a lot of the cases that we're seeing that are coming in right now um predate um me as chief of police and that's not placing blame anywhere else that's just the that's just where we're at today um we have had some um I would say that that have been filed under my tenure those are those are um more on the um employment side again with with that being said that's why we want to make sure that we're we're doing a professional human resources um the wellness piece does come into that conversation because um I think sometimes you know if if there's some kind of unemployment action taken and it's not explained to someone or if it if it um if the the the person affected doesn't feel like that's fair um and that hasn't been explained or or well thought out or really um we want to make sure that we're handling all of those in by law and also um not just by law but also explaining uh certain actions to members and I think sometimes um that may not have happened in the past that resulted in in someone filing some type of of a of an employment situation but um we are looking at I I think I mentioned some of those earlier about about making sure that that what we're doing today is going to reduce guardless our risks tomorrow um making sure that um you know all of those trainings even look like I said um everything from you know professionalizing human resources to looking at um how we're we're training our folks and supervision and oversight and just making sure that we're the best police department we're or we're acting in the best way and the most lawful way to reduce some of these but but I think your question was how are we analyzing some of that data so I look at you know that that's in the board book every month at the Board of Police Commissioners meeting we've got our board book days in advance and I look at every page and in the back um the back section is usually where the Office of Community Complaints is and I look through each one of those we have our patrol bureau that that monitors our our use of force reports.

I mean like there are so many um different areas of of analyzing to make sure that you know you could look at some of the some cases and and maybe um dissect those and you know some of these these uh lawsuits coming in um just analyzing those and how we could have potentially done something better and sometimes I'm gonna like sometimes you know we we did have some fault and sometimes um we weren't looked upon favorably even though you know maybe it maybe everything we did was good except one little little piece of that and it just kind of um that's what maybe would have been that deciding factor of of not prevailing in that case so I I don't have the the numbers committed to memory but I do recall prior to your tenure um doing an extensive review of the Office of Complain Office of Community complaints and talking with uh the team there and identifying that there were uh officers that had significant number of complaints and so that's why I mentioned that that um I do believe that there is an opportunity to be proactive and prevent some of the future lawsuits that may and settlements that may potentially come by being proactive and looking at trends.

I agree and so and that's why I asked the question is you know because I don't think we've asked in this this body particular since you've you've come in but we spent significant amount of time previously looking at that or discussing that and I just would love to see more in terms of kind of what what action steps are you putting in place what additional training is happening to ensure that you are being as proactive and preventative as possible to try to reduce some of the potential settlements that may come.

So I just mentioned that.

Yes and some of those trainings are um constitutional policing duty to intervene uh de-escalation crisis intervention and and I I even mentioned driver's training earlier because um some of those settlements also involve vehicular accidents I mean we have our officers out on the road 24 hours a day seven days a week and um you know sometimes before entering an intersection code one you know those those situations sometimes happen so um looking at each one of those making sure that we are providing that training that constitutional policing training that's just we're getting ready to start our second year of that and so really um you know building for the future but also uh we do look at those trends um and if there are any folks that are associated with those trends okay thank you for that so now I'll talk about overtime so can you let tell us what percentage of total police activity currently relies on overtime and how will those how will service levels be changed based upon this you halting over time.

I don't have a percentage.

Um can you ask that question?

What what percentage of our what percentage, what percentage of the total police activity really relies on overtime?

And I'm really well I will tell you in communications, we heavily relied on overtime until we got to the staffing that we're at now.

Uh now we're in those unfunded positions and we're starting to cut back some of those uh contract workers or even some of those members that were um in different positions that would come in and work uh answering 911 calls on overtime.

Uh, you know, because we've started to fill those positions, which we are still continuing to hire for call takers, by the way.

Um call takers uh uh dispatchers, um, our detention officers and also our fleet.

We're continuing to hire those those those um those positions are are not in some of the other positions that we're we're we're holding on and until the new year starts.

Um but but but but the percentage I would say the percentage in the communications unit at one point, even within the past year was pretty high.

Uh that being said, uh I would say our overtime usage is mostly in those those extra duties that I listed before.

Um, or if some of our officers are are um caught on a on a on a call and they they have to work overtime for for a little bit cover shifts.

Um I don't have an exact percentage, but like for the basic services outside of the way that communications used to be, um, it's just buying back some some officers, but it's it's more in the lower percentage.

And I meet with our patrol bureau every week and we go over our staffing to make sure that we are aligned.

Um if we have uh a station that is um you know, there's you know, uh a drop in staffing for for transfers or bidding process, you know, we look at that and want to make sure that we put officers in those areas once the next bid comes around.

So I can't really wholly answer that question other than then um the overtime usage is mostly um in those extra duties.

And can you can you speak to the impact on response times?

So um the impact on response times uh that's something else that we report um in the Board of Police Commissioners meeting, and that varies here and there, month to month, depending on um several different factors, but uh I haven't seen that number negatively impact our our response times.

And so weather has weather will slow slow us down a little bit.

Well, and you know, so the reason why I asked the question about that is because you know, as we as we begin to warm up, we know that you know there's a higher there becomes a higher need for police presence and across every corner of our city, everybody, you know, public safety is the number one issue, and people re frequently request to see uh more police presence from the far northland area to south.

And uh just understanding trying I was trying to understand how much of that uh of the overtime potentially will impact that because I know probably ever across every district we all are probably asking for additional peak police presence.

Uh and we do have our you know peak hours as well, so really just trying to understand specifically how if it will be impacted and how um and then you know what how what will what will be the impact on response times by you halting overtime.

So the response times are those on duty already filled shifts.

A lot of this overtime is in those those extra duties.

Um you know, like if if um our SWAT team is serving a warrant or gets called out to an operation 100, or um, you know, I'm not we're not cutting that, we're not cutting uh homicide detectives getting called out.

We're not we're not cutting um, you know, any of those call-out responsibility overtime.

It's just some of that which we can um either adjust someone's hours to to still um maintain whatever that mission is that those officers are out on, or uh request that they take comp time instead of paid.

And that that's that's another um that that was I believe that was in the internal email that I sent out to all employees too, is that um try to take comp time instead of overtime.

We always I always want to look at things this is what I tell our our people too, which we have a great police department.

I want everyone to know there we we've really been working hard this past year, and um I really um am appreciative of the men and women who who go out there and do the job every day.

But um, you know, over the past year we've well we've I I kind of got lost uh in that just thinking about um our can you ask me that one more time?

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Actually, I think you you answered the question.

The on duty folks it it those those folks are already on duty, they're already responding to calls for service.

Um the the overtime is something that that's usually like um beyond with the extra.

Now we're talking about extra patrol.

Oh, this is what I was saying.

So I message our people of of how we can help not not I don't want our approach to ever be what we can't do, it's what we can do.

And so, you know, maybe we we can't be at 30 first and prospect 24 hours a day, but what we can do is have on duty officers make sure that they stop by there on their shift every day.

So where you still have that presence.

So I so thank you for that.

Um I also wanted to just uh commend you and talk a little bit about priority-based budgeting because I know you uh didn't have to, but you agree to work in partnership with the city finance department to uh utilize and and implement priority-based budgeting.

Um, and so just wanted to to see what um potential savings were identified in the priorities based in your priority-based budgeting processes as you worked with city staff to identify those opportunities.

Um that it it rolls into the way we do it for priority-based budgeting, is we break it down at the program level, which is for us is at the division level, and so that's looking at the the allocation of personnel across all of our divisions.

Um it's looking at trying to find efficiencies where we can or um you know, putting professional staff in positions that have historically been law enforcement members and then putting those law enforcement members back out into a patrol um where they are you know doing the law enforcement activities.

That's that's a lot of what we gained out of uh that browser-based budgeting thus far.

Um unfortunately, you know, obviously what we're here to talk about is sometimes these situations out of our control occur, and so it throws off the entire priority-based budgeting plan for the fiscal year, um, but then we go into next fiscal year looking at the same things as is where can we most efficiently allocate our personnel and equipment and try to find the savings that we can.

And I appreciate that.

I I will say that I don't necessarily believe it's out of your control.

I believe you actually do have control.

Uh, my last question is in regards to officers, what safeguards are in place to prevent to prevent officer fatigue, burnout, and unsafe staffing levels as you uh make these restrictions.

Uh so really our officers have worked a lot of overtime this past year, obviously, from from where we're at in this conversation now.

Um we're keeping an eye on that.

That's something that our wellness unit is engaged in.

Um, should an officer be involved in any type of critical incident.

You know, we have um we have procedures and policies in place that there's a check-in.

Um, and also that that's something that our our sergeants are advised of and even receive human resources training on um employee relations.

Uh we also have limits on how much off-duty our officers can work.

That way we don't have officers who are working their their shift and then working an absorbent amount of off-duty um somewhere else and then coming back in with little sleep.

Our policy says that um you you have to allow yourself eight hours of non-working time to sleep before a shift.

I mean, we have a lot of policies in place to um to prohibit some of that um excessive uh work for for some of our employees for our employees' health, and I'm telling you, our wellness unit is um fantastic.

They will get the overnight summaries.

We have a summary that goes out citywide over um, you know, significant events, and they follow that.

You know, if one of our officers made a a tough scene, um they'll reach out to our officers and and make sure that um they're provided whatever whatever assistance they need.

Okay, and then my final statement really is just uh to advocate on behalf of uh the fifth district that I know in talking with community leaders, uh there's concern that we don't have enough police presence uh on in certain peak times in southeast Kansas City, and just want to ensure that you are continuing to monitor response times and ensuring that the public is not in jeopardy or unsafe uh due to these changes.

Okay, oh absolutely, yeah.

Um and you know, um, since you pointed that out, um I can utilize that that that data system that we have, and I can uh narrow that down to specific areas to see where our response time is in in that in specific areas of our city.

And we'll we'll make sure that um thank you for bringing that to my attention, and I'll make sure that um Major Barnes is aware of that and stays on top of that.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh we'll go back around, I guess.

Councilman Duncan.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh I want to start with transparency and then move back into officer conduct.

So earlier this week you told Fox 4 that you had discussed this budget crisis with the mayor and the board of police commissioners, and as the mayor pointed out, there was a board of police commissioners meeting uh the Tuesday before you released the memo.

Did you brief the board um on this budget crisis and the measures you're going to take then?

I have have briefed the board on our current situation, yes.

Uh and also in our board books, um, there is a sheet that's put out by the fiscal division each month, and it talks about our um if we're in a favorable position or unfavorable position.

Um sometimes that's that's in different categories.

So that so that's part of the board materials in our board books.

You told them that you were going to eliminate overtime.

I did not tell them I was going to uh eliminate overtime.

And did you tell them that you would need to take drastic measures so that basic services could be continued?

They I I believe the board of police commissioners trusts me and my leadership that if we are having some kind of budgetary imbalance that the expectation would be of me as a department leader to make some kind take some kind of action to try to slow that down a bit so we can make sure that we make budget.

Um so I mean I think the answer is no.

So if not for this leaked memo that I circulated with city council members.

What was the notion?

The no being that you did not inform the board of police commissioners that you were going to eliminate overtime and take drastic measures to I did answer that at as a no.

I told I told you I did that on my own.

So if not for this leaked memo um that we still haven't received from the KCPD police department or you, um I received it through Fox 4 and circulated it with the members of the city council prior to this meeting.

Um we may have never have known that overtime was going to be reduced, that there was going to be uh drastic measures taken to prevent basic services from from being eliminated.

It doesn't reduce basic services, and that's stated in that.

And that it's not a leaked email.

I sent that to 1600 employees.

Anything that goes out to 1600 employees, I don't expect that to stay necessarily within the walls of KCPD.

Well, it was leaked from your department to the media, which is how we were we received it.

We we didn't receive it directly.

And in no way would it would I have ever uh put something out to take you as counsel off guard.

That was just something that that's something that we've got to do.

But my question goes to Chief.

When were you going to let us know?

Well, um we are had planned to meet with uh city officials here, and I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could in my position as a department leader to reduce some of those costs to make sure that I'm minimizing whatever the impact could potentially be before presenting it to council.

I'm not reducing policing services.

I'm reducing overtime, and I'm asking for our folks to utilize comp time and just to make sure that whatever overtime it is utilized, that it's utilized uh in a need to basis.

It was no in no way I I understand how this has been um received.

I think the word drastic was taken out of context.

This is a chief of police who uh had recently after the second quarter projection put out a 25% reduction in overtime, already seeing what those projections were.

After the third quarter projection, I saw okay, hey, we are even um we didn't quite move the needle like we needed to.

That was the the stronger language that was used, like, hey guys, we really need to tighten the belt because we really need to make budget.

This is not something that is uncommon.

This is something that I have seen throughout my career this time of year.

Hey guys, you got to cut down an overtime.

This is me being fiscally responsible as a department leader, and um I understand how you know this this email um has sent out.

Um, you know, I don't I don't feel good about that, you know.

Uh the way that this is has turned out, you know, I would have definitely taken out the word drastic, but um, you know, that's something that you should expect from a department leader to to take action.

Um and in that memo or that email is what it was, it says it does not gonna affect uh basic services, like in the we're gonna get through together through this together as as a as a police department.

Um I'm also um it it's also too bad that um you know I've been mischaracterized in this.

Um I would hope that in this situation that the default wouldn't be to think that something is being mismanaged is some kind of crisis um and you don't trust me.

I have been a front-facing communicator that I promised I would be when I took this role.

I have been transparent.

If you call me over here, sir, I'm here and I will answer all your questions.

If you have a question or your constituents need anything, you know you can call me direct.

Um and so to be to be characterized as mismanaging the budget or um taking the uh council off guard, that was never in my never my intention.

It's never my intention to put our council on guard or um or um put in any kind of negative light, or neither is it some kind of a ploy to put the council in a negative budgetary position.

This is purely business over on my side.

This is me as a department leader that you should trust me to take action when I need to to try to write our ship over there and and uh try to take responsibility for what we're spending in overtime and trying to work through the budget, and and when it does come to a time where I do need um where in this situation where I likely gonna need relief, then that's something that that I will absolutely bring to you.

But I'm trying to write the ship before that happens.

Chief, I I I want to trust you, and I think you know a foundation a foundational element of trust is is communication and transparency, which is what I'm trying to get at.

And I think you know, there's an expectation that when you have issues that put the department and this city in a budget crisis that you take care of those issues.

Um and I'll and I'll get to to settlements again.

Uh I I do want to raise one point because it hasn't been discussed yet.

Um there's uh there's some recent allegations of officers who are double dipping, which is a s uh which is essentially simultaneously collecting pay for two duties at the same time.

Can you speak to the prevalence of this practice and what you're doing to prevent it?

Um I I'm not aware of what you're talking about right now, but in the past, if anybody was well, there's currently there's currently a major in your command who's been accused of double dipping, and there's a and there's a lawsuit associated with it.

You're not aware of that?

I thought you said currently.

I am aware of that, and there was significant discipline um in those types of situations, generally speaking.

Generally speaking, how prevalent is is double dipping?

I wouldn't say it is prevalent.

I would say it has happened and has been caught from time to time.

And generally speaking, when when that is uh uncovered, addressed, located, been made aware of, we take administrative and disciplinary action.

Speaking to administrative and disciplinary action, uh we've talked about one of the leading elements is settlements that have put us in this situation is put the police department in the city in a precarious budget situation.

Um during your time as chief, have any officers been removed from the force due to conduct complaints or settlements?

Have any officers been removed from the force?

Officers have been removed from the force under my tenure, yes.

Okay.

Um I think when we get into more budget conversations, I'm gonna want more information of just what is it going to take for an officer to be removed from the force.

Um I'm the only city council member in this room who has served in a position to have carry a weapon as part of my day job.

I'm the only city council member um who has been in a position um to take a life.

Um and the conduct that I've seen video of a police officer unloading an entire magazine on a van that killed two, injured one indiscriminately, is something that I would have been kicked out of the army for so it's distressing to me that I had a greater expectation of conduct in a war zone than police officers have on our street.

My escalation of force and rules of engagement were more strenuous than you are allowing your officers to conduct themselves for our residents, and and that is unacceptable, and it is resulting in settlements, loss of life first, which I think is most important, and settlements that are directly impacting the public safety of our residents, the trust of your police department.

We know in the in a war zone that if we have personnel who are conducting themselves in a way that your officers have conducted themselves, that it hurts our ability to collect information and it puts the entire unit at risk.

You're saying officers.

You are painting the police department with a very broad brush.

We're talking about settlements, Chief.

It's not just from one officer, correct?

You you're mentioning one officer situation.

But the settlements aren't just from one officer, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

For I think I think we've had prior testimony that um we won't delve necessarily issue.

And so we'll continue on questions, just a separate line of inquiry.

I I think what I'm trying to get at is the fact that I expect out of our police force a high standard of conduct.

I do too.

And I'm not, and I'm not seeing it, it's not reflected in the settlements that we're paying out.

That's that putting our city in in jeopardy.

And so I want additional information of what it's going to take to hold folks accountable to prevent settlements, which is going to require accountability on your part, Chief.

I hear you, and I I think that you are um you are assuming that most of these settlements are in one category.

We'll go to um I'm done.

Councilman Bunch, then Councilman Willard.

Yeah, um, I I absolutely have the same expectation of conduct from our officers, but I also want to make sure that you know as we get detailed and on many of pending many pending litigation, uh many cases from our city attorney and closed sessions on from other departments, and we've had some doozies, I'll tell you.

Um, one of the things that puts us high really high risk are our employees who've been quote unquote wrongfully terminated.

And so I want to also put in out there that it is vitally important that when we do have disciplinary action happen, that one there is a process because we have seen a lack of process um and uh come back to bite us in several cases across the board, not just your department.

But um, and so uh to to councilman Duncan's point, we do need to hold those folks accountable.

We need to make sure we have a process, and and so that's all I that's just bringing that up there.

And so um I and and so just recognizing that that process needs to be in place and the process is what helps prevent future large settlements potentially.

Um that just felt it was worth saying.

Thank you.

Councilman Willett.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I want to have a question for our city manager um within the so the million dollars that the council approved for entertainment districts slash overtime.

Where is that money sitting?

Did that ever get over to the police department for overtime?

I don't believe that money was transferred for specifically for overtime.

I think it was just transferred to the police department.

Uh uh correct if I'm wrong, um, but I I think we did transfer uh uh a million dollars worth of public safety sales tax to the police department for fuel fuel purchases uh and and then just and an exchange for um general funds, you know.

So it was it was a trade more or less, but I don't I don't believe it's specifically for for overtime.

Okay, because my understanding within the budget is that the city was going to cover the cost of fuel for the police department throughout the whole term, so then adding another million dollars for fuel didn't really add any extra money to the police department.

And so that's the million dollars I think as a council we can talk about and control.

Obviously, the settlements over time, two big things we're talking about here, but I want to make sure that that million dollars that I thought was going for overtime, having additional fuel when we already said we're gonna cover all your fuel, that didn't accomplish anything.

If I may just briefly, I believe, and and I introduced the ordinance, um the transfer is going to community improvement districts in uh the uh affected corridors and so for security, and so the funding certainly can ultimately go to an officer's overtime, but for example, it would be a funding allocation.

I think the crossroads CID, for example, just went through some of the work to be able to obtain that funding source, and so money would go to them.

It was for additional private security and districts that have had uh public safety issues.

I I have no idea right now how much has been encumbered or not, but that was the idea.

I don't think it was ever a program just going straight to patrol.

So I don't think we ever charge BD with any responsibility connecting to it.

But uh based on the uh recent ordinance and my interpretation of that is it was transferred to fuel costs that were held on the city side for PD fuel, and then a million dollars was transferred out of that category into the general fund on the city side.

Right.

Were you guys able to draw into that for overtime?

For no, no, no, we didn't weren't able to use any of that for I mean, yes, there's a potential.

I it can't it comes out of public safety sales tax, so it's for equipment and and uh um services all related to public safety, and so there was a potential it could have been used for overtime, but it that looks like it went into fuel costs um for for PDE vehicles.

Okay, and that's in the tradition of that years ago in Major Hydon may know it better than me because we tried at one point, Councilman Robinson, you may remember to just directly provide overtime funding to KCPD, and it created more drama than not your fault.

It's I think just bureaucratically the rate at which they have to pay someone, depending on how the overtime is assigned, is just different.

I I won't necessarily get in the details.

And so the idea on that legislation was CIDs can obtain security often off duty officers, uh, but and then that was how it was going to be addressed with that additional security.

City manager, can we get an update on how that money has been spent?

Yeah, certainly.

And then um lastly, I just want to thank you again, Chief, for being here.

I know that major topic was about um expenditures, but you also address a lot of different questions um with that relating to that topic and a little bit off of that.

Um I trust you, um, and and trust does mean you know, I expect you to hold all your officers accountable for for actions, but I do believe that we yeah, the broad brush uh of that.

I I don't believe that I know I believe most members of KCPD are amazing people and and do a great service for our community, and that's why I see a lot of our constituencies ask for more um officers, and we are seeing our department on the uptick of on recruitment retention, and I'm very excited to see us close that gap and get to roughly 1400 officers.

And I believe that that is uh solely or largely due to your leadership and the Board of Police Commissioners.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Councilwoman Patterson has it.

Thank you, Chief.

Um, I just thank you, Mayor, for recognition.

Um, I just wanted to say that after listening to all the discussion, I think it's a good thing that you are looking at overtime and and possible ways that it might be utilized in ways that are you know not necessary, and so you know, right sizing that behavior within your department, I think is actually a really good thing.

I think the way your memo was written um didn't communicate that, you know, that hey, we're using too much overtime in ways that might not be really crucial, and so let's pull that overtime back because we're we're over budget, and so I just want to say that I I recognize that that's that's how I'm interpreting after listening to two hours of uh discussion.

Uh the second thing that I want to do is take you up on your offer for a future closed session where we can discuss um you know what are the trends across the um the settlement cases, and is there you know, a couple of things that stand out that within your departmental procedures and requirements can can um reduce those settlements because you know we're we're paying, I mean, it's it's a hefty price tag of the settlements, and so what what should the department be doing to keep people from from you know getting sued, frankly.

Um, and I and and that's honestly not unique, you know.

There we're getting sued all across all the departments.

I think yours are really expensive though, comparatively.

Um, so I think there's an opportunity to talk about that, and then also um, you know, getting an understanding of your budget choices when you are having a short file.

Um, I think you've bought a few toys recently.

The the ATVs, the bomb and arson truck, the uh command post bus and our drones, those are all purchased by the police foundation.

Yeah, and I'm a big fan of the foundation.

I'm looking forward to going to the gala.

Uh the point is I think um if you're having the um overages, maybe the foundation would be open to you using um the money in a different way.

I think the foundation has been in existence for now 15 years, 13, 13 to 15.

And and they um have a narrow uh focus of what they will fund.

I know, and so I'm asking maybe they will be willing to revise what they will fund given the needs of 2026 that are very different than 15 years ago.

It's just a thought because it's extra money that you need because you are cutting back.

Um so those are just my comments, but I think overall um moving in the right direction.

I think the communication is much better than it has been in the past.

We're having to make significant um choices.

It's affecting procurement and contracts and you know things we can and cannot do across the city because we're having to be more conservative, and so it's only fair that every department does that, and you've you've been pro you're proactive in that in that case.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Chief, uh, thank you so much.

Just uh we'll make sure that we've figure out whatever way with our respective lawyers to get ourselves to a closed session to discuss these items.

I always welcome uh my peers at the Board of Police Commissioners as well to visit with us.

I appreciate Chairman Whitaker being with us now.

Um I also would support strong legislative advocacy in the Missouri legislature to Councilman Curl's question and perhaps surprise of the million-dollar fund for my colleagues.

I believe it's been a million dollars since about 1991 of what we get from the state, and uh finding a way to increase that and to address the liabilities.

I'll echo my colleagues the 10 and a half years I've worked with two permanent chiefs previously.

None have ever sat in this seat for as much time.

Good people, um, good leaders.

That being said, we do appreciate uh obviously the time that you've made for all of us, same as well, major and your colleagues.

With that, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the time today.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Chief.

Discussion of order.

Okay, everybody's just done.

All right.

Um there's potential for closed session items, but we would probably do that after our legislative session, given our guests.

So we'll stand adjourned to legislative session.