Missouri Gov. Mike Parson in June 2022 holds up a copy of a bill he had just signed to increase the Kansas City Police Department's budget during a ceremony at the department headquarters. (Photo courtesy of the Missouri Governor's Office).

Kansas City officials have another chance next month to fend off an attempt by Missouri lawmakers to force the city to spend more of its revenue on policing. 

But despite opposition from Kansas City leaders and activists, there’s no formal campaign against the ballot initiative, which was previously passed by Missouri voters but later tossed by the Missouri Supreme Court over deceptive ballot language.

Instead, opponents of the proposal will try to get the word out without “gigantic checks,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“But I don’t pretend to think that will necessarily win the day,” Lucas said.

At issue is a question that will appear on Missouri voters’ August 6 primary ballot as “Amendment 4.” It asks whether the Missouri Constitution should be amended to require Kansas City to spend at least one-quarter of its general revenue on policing, an increase of close to $39 million.

Missouri voters previously approved the spending hike with 63% of the vote in 2022. But the measure was unpopular with Kansas Citians. In the Jackson County portion of Kansas City, more than 61% of voters rejected the amendment. It passed in Platte and Clay counties, which include suburban parts of Kansas City.

Lucas sued the state’s auditor and secretary of state, saying a summary printed on voters’ ballots “materially misstated” the cost of the proposal. He prevailed, and the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the election results be tossed out and a new vote be held.

The police funding amendment is one of two questions on Missouri voters’ August primary ballots. The other, passed last year by the Missouri General Assembly and appearing on the ballot as Amendment 1, would exempt child care facilities from paying property taxes in an attempt to “make child care more available” to “support the well-being of children, families, the workforce, and society as a whole.”

“We obviously have a child care facility shortage in our state,” state Sen. Travis Fitzwater said during a hearing on the property tax amendment last year. “We need to provide opportunities for folks that get child care.”

A “yes” vote on Amendment 1 supports amending the Missouri Constitution to allow child care facilities to be exempted from paying property tax. 

On Amendment 4, a “yes” vote supports amending the Missouri Constitution to increase the minimum amount Kansas City must spend on policing from 20% to 25%. A “no” vote would leave Kansas City’s spending obligations at 20%, though city officials could voluntarily spend more.

Police funding campaign

The police funding dispute stems from the Kansas City City Council’s attempt in 2021 to impose some control over the Kansas City Police Department’s Budget.

For more than 80 years, the Kansas City Police Department has been controlled not by the City Council but by a board of commissioners appointed by Missouri’s governor. The only city in the state and one of few in the nation that doesn’t control its police, Kansas City simply provides the funds for the department.

While the city was obligated between 1958 and 2022 to provide the funding requested by the board — up to 20% of the city’s general revenue — it has little control over how it is spent. 

The city has often exceeded its 20% obligation.

But following racial justice protests that took place in Kansas City — and across the nation — in 2020, City Council members attempted to set aside $42 million in police funding above its obligatory spending for “community engagement, outreach, prevention, intervention and other public services.”

The move was criticized by Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly who voted to increase Kansas City’s obligation to 25% of its revenue. 

“Kansas City’s short-sighted move to defund the KCPD, if attempted again, will have lasting and dangerous consequences for our metro area,” state Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer said in a committee hearing in 2022, when the amendment was approved by lawmakers.

Luetkemeyer, who lives in the suburbs of Kansas City, carried the legislation in 2022 to increase the city’s police spending obligations. He did not return a request for comment.

The 2022 legislation passed the Missouri General Assembly on a largely party-line vote with Republicans supporting the increased police spending and Democrats opposing it. 

Lucas said voting no was the “only common sense solution.”

Residents of Kansas City, he said, should be the ones to determine the policy direction of the city by electing local representatives. He said one year the council may need to increase police salaries and the next it may need to spend money on other needs, like firefighting. 

“Who should tell you that, ‘No, you can’t actually take care of your firefighters; you can’t take care of the nurses in your public hospital because you have to live by whatever Jefferson City is doing just for pure political pandering?’” Lucas said. 

Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2, called the attempt by state lawmakers to force Kansas City to spend 25% of its revenue on policing “a political ploy.”

“Why do you care what our police department has or doesn’t have?” McDonald said. “It’s not your business. It’s not your money.”

Lucas said there was “no organized campaign” to persuade voters to reject the amendment.

Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the issue to go on the August ballot rather than the November one, giving supporters and opponents just over two months to mobilize voters.

According to Missouri Ethics Commission records, no spending committees have been organized to advocate for or against Amendment 4, and no independent groups have spent money in the race.

Child care tax credit

Along with the Kansas City police question, Missouri voters in August will get to decide whether to amend the state constitution to offer a property tax exemption for child care facilities. 

The proposal, championed during the 2023 legislative session by Fitzwater, is one of several attempts by lawmakers in the last few years to ease the shortage of child care facilities in Missouri. 

This spring, Parson and lawmakers attempted to pass a package of child care tax credits, but the legislation stalled in the Senate because of ultra-conservative opposition to “welfare” or the attempt to “give away free child care.”

An investigation by The Independent and MuckRock found nearly one in five Missouri children lives in a “child care desert,” where there are more than three children under the age of 6 for every licensed child care slot — or no licensed slots at all.

“This is just one incentive to try to make that easier for the facilities,” Fitzwater said during a committee hearing on the property tax exemption last year. Fitzwater did not return a request for comment.

Fitzwater’s proposal was supported by an array of child care and economic development organizations and anti-abortion groups. 

Samuel Lee, a lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, said during discussion on the bill last year that the anti-abortion group supported the “pro-life, pro-family, pro-workforce development” legislation.

“The pro-life movement has generally not been involved in areas of childcare,” he said, “although for our maternity homes and pregnancy resource centers, the lack of available childcare, the lack of transportation, the lack of housing have always been the three major issues for their clients.” 

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry also supported the measure last year. Its lobbyist Heidi Geisbuhler Sutherland said business owners told the chamber that the lack of child care makes it difficult to find workers. 

“It’s going to take an all-of-the-above approach to tackling the child care crisis,” she said, “but I think this measure is a great way to start.”