A new staffing study, unveiled last month, was explained to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners for the first time Tuesday.
The $134,000 study by Matrix Consulting Group recommends new hires for KCPD in jobs like dispatcher, forensic specialist and crime lab technicians but keeps the number of patrol officers almost the same.
"I think this study comes obviously at a pretty important time for the city and department," said Richard Brady of Matrix.
Brady presented key points of the study to the board of commissioners on the same day Rick Smith was sworn in as the new KCPD chief.
As 41 Action News reported in March, the study was presented at the same time violent crime is at its highest point in a decade, the number of patrol officers is at its lowest point in the same time frame and response times for officers to answer calls are also up.
Numbers released on the same day as the presentation show 89 homicides so far in 2017.
That number is up nearly 30 percent from 69 homicides at the same time last year.
As 41 Action News first reported last month, more than 95 percent of the KCPD officers surveyed for the staffing study said there needs to be more police officers on the streets.
That input seems to contradict the recommendation in the study.
"The organization completely disagrees with the idea that we don't need more officers on the street," said Fraternal Order of Police President Brad Lemon.
"While patrol officers did say that they didn't have enough staffing, this is also a question of how they operate," Brady said.
Specifically, Brady says one possibility is reducing the number of two officer car units to one officer per car so more cars can patrol the city and answer calls.
"To talk about putting all police officers in single cars is insane when assaults on police officers have gone through the roof," Lemon said.
"If it were a question just of officer safety, then it would be enshrined in policy in management, in first line supervision and it's not," Brady said.
Lemon agrees with a finding in the study noting KCPD's command staff is too large.
"Chief Forte left the department and promoted four more majors on his way out the door which made no sense," he said.
The study also recommends moving some sworn police officers off administrative type jobs and replacing them with civilians.
"Administrative people should be administrative people and police officers should be police officers," Brady said.
While Lemon doesn't disagree with that assessment, he says police have had mixed messages from the city about civilian police jobs.
"Ten years ago we were told by the city to get rid of civilian positions and put officers in them," he said.
Lemon says Chief Smith has a difficult job in front of him.
"He's going to have to make some tough decisions and because of that, we're going to have to find a way to try to work with him," he said.
Chief Smith and his staff will review the study, then come back to the police board with recommendations for changes.
