https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article254298403.html
I think this story is only available to subscribers, but here are the highlights:
The Kansas City police department (KCPD) receives $271 million annually but the KC city council doesn't know how that money is actually spent, because the KCPD won't tell them.
The city council knows KCPD's budget, about which KCPD's spokesperson said "I struggle to see how this shows a lack of transparency.” The city, however, is suspicious about how much the KCPD actually adheres to that budget.
The budget for the fiscal year in terms of staffing provided for 1,413 law enforcement officers, which is the same as last year and 10 more than the previous year. However, the actual number of sworn officers has been below that for the last five years at least. As of May of this year, the number was only 1,253.
Mayor Quinton Lucas "introduced ordinances that earmarked about 18% of the funds the department receives from the city, or $42.3 million, for a fund that the Board of Police Commissioners, which oversees the force, and City Hall leadership would decide how to spend." The police board sued in retaliation. They said that this arrangement would force layoffs and require cuts in other essential police services, "a claim city leaders refuted."
Prosecutors are criticizing how many resources the KCPD spends on pursuing petty drug cases. Chief deputy prosecutor Dan Nelson reported that "the KCPD had about 130 employees working in narcotics, while at the time, there were 12 detectives on the squad handling 6,000 assaults — including hundreds of non-fatal shootings."
Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker commented that there are "disturbing" racial disparities in how drug cases are pursued. "In what are referred to as buy bust cases, in which undercover KCPD detectives buy drugs before a dealer is arrested, for example, about 80% of defendants in 2019 were Black — more than double the percentage of their population in the city."
TL;DR: Kansas City police are not telling the city how its $271 million budget is being spent, but the city knows that in at least some areas (such as staffing) it isn't spent in the way it was allocated, and the police board has actually sued the city for attempting to require more transparency and accountability. The KCPD has pursued petty drug crimes to the exclusion of violent crimes, and there is dramatic racial bias apparent in their practices in this area.
IMO, it's completely bonkers that the KCPD isn't required to actually account for the expenditure of its budget, and the city should cut off funding entirely until this is rectified.