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After Kansas City, Missouri, Chief of Police Stacey Graves recently sent an internal email to her employees about cutting down on overtime due to budget issues, a two-hour city council discussion on Thursday zeroed in on what's causing the "budgetary imbalance."
Graves, along with Major Josh Heinen from the fiscal department, explained that the issues are too much overtime, staffing issues, and the amount KCPD is paying to settle lawsuits.
However, the biggest strain on the budget is lawsuit settlements.
So far, KCPD has paid out nearly $11 million in settlements when they only had $2.5 million allotted in the current budget.
In 2025, KCPD paid out $21 million in lawsuit settlements.
One officer has been heavily scrutinized for the use of excessive force: Blayne Newton.
Newton has been in the news recently when prosecutors decided not to file charges against him after he shot three people in a car, killing two of them, in 2023.
Last fall, the family settled a $3.5 million wrongful death lawsuit with KCPD as a result of that incident.
Several council members said they want a better understanding of what it will take to hold problematic officers accountable.
"I think the department absolutely has to do a better job of reducing the behavior that results in settlements, otherwise we're going to continue to pay out more settlements, more money, and less for the things we actually need," 4th District Councilman Crispin Rea said.
Graves spoke to the media after the meeting and said the department's disciplinary policies are publicly available.
"Because of the specific officer you've mentioned, I can't speak about personnel matters or records," Graves said. "That being said, I wish I could."
During the meeting, Mayor Quinton Lucas brought up a budget presentation meeting from Feb. 2025, in which he asked KCPD how much it would need for settlements for the following year. Heinen said $2.5 million would be a "reasonable amount."
However, Lucas said just months later, KCPD settled a $14 million lawsuit in May 2025. That lawsuit was for a wrongful conviction case involving Ricky Kidd, who was exonerated after serving 20 years for a double homicide he did not commit.
Graves said the department is trying to minimize risks for future settlements, which several council members emphasized and said they wanted to see more transparency about.
On top of the settlement payouts, the department is down about 190 officers.
The council and Mayor Lucas said all these issues came as a surprise, and they only found out about them when that internal KCPD email was "leaked."
They also questioned the timing of it, as the fiscal budget year is almost at a close.
"I value those conversations with city council and them being kept apprised," Graves said after the meeting. "In no way was that internal email to 1,600 employees meant in any way to take anyone off guard. That was me as a leader trying to cut back on expenses."
Rea was one of the council members who said they needed more transparent conversations about the KCPD's budget problems.
"The police department is going to have to figure out how to do a better job on the front end and on the back end, how they do a better job of forecasting settlement amounts so that it's not a surprise at the end of the year," Rea said.
Graves stressed she is not cutting back on basic services and wishes she hadn't used the word "drastic" in her email.
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