Sarah Komar
Special to the Citizen
After multiple failed attempts to replace the Kansas City International Airport Police Department (KCIPD) with Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) officers, KC mayor Quinton Lucas has revived efforts to change the face of policing at KCI.
At a June 24 meeting of the city council’s transportation, infrastructure and operations committee, Lucas co-sponsored a bill requiring the city manager to outline steps needed to transfer airport policing operations to the KCPD. The committee passed the bill, which requires the city manager’s office to return its report within 30 days.
The potential policy change, which has long been a point of contention between city officials and the KC Aviation Department (KCAD), would require the KCAD, rather than the city’s general fund, to pay the salaries of KCPD officers at the airport. The KCAD’s budget is independent from the city and is funded by airport revenues.
In a letter sent to the city manager’s office in January, KCAD Director Paul Klein outlined his concerns with plans to replace the KCIPD. The letter serves as the KCAD’s official comment on Lucas’s bill, said senior manager of communications Joe McBride.
Klein
The airport’s officers, who have the same state certification and receive similar training, are paid 8%-50% of their KCPD counterparts, Klein said in the letter. Changing officers’ salaries to match KCPD guidelines could cost the KCAD at least $3-7 million per year, not counting costs of equipment and retirement pay.
“KCAD does not see any service level benefits from moving from our officers to KCPD officers to justify such dramatic increases in costs,” Klein said.
Other issues Klein cited included potential multi-million-dollar Federal Aviation Administration fines — which would be paid by the city — for violating revenue diversion rules, and the legal inability for airport management to direct KCPD officers while the KCPD is under state control.
Former KCIPD Police chief Steve Newman said he thinks the proposed change is not only unnecessary and financially untenable — it is also insulting to KCIPD officers who have been successfully policing the airport for decades. Newman left KCI in 2019 amid debates over the change in authority, and now works at the San Antonio International Airport.
“They have issues of their own they need to take care of in the city,” Newman said. “For years, as they’ve kept trying, it’s always been known that the airport is taking care of itself, It has no issues.”
Newman said the KCIPD has a proven record of handling airport law enforcement and the other duties assigned to the department, such as overseeing taxi and limousine services, airport lost-and-found and dispatching. Newman does not think KCPD officers have the experience, desire or proper tone to successfully manage the multi-faceted job.
“The airport is a business, so it’s more of business-type law enforcement,” Newman said. “Because the people that come to the airport actually pay your salary. So therefore, you have a lot of customer service.”
Klein expressed similar sentiments in his January letter, citing fundamental differences between the traditional roles of the KCPD and the KCIPD.
“Law enforcement is important in our security plan, but is not the dominating force behind it,” Klein said, “and that philosophy between the two police forces is quite different and has been apparent.”
Lucas, who has expressed his desire to cut city costs by moving KCPD officer salaries to the airport, told the committee that the passage of the bill only initiates a “fact-finding mission,” not an actual policy change.
“This is something that gets us information, it allows us to at least compare ourselves and the provision of security services to peer airports,” Lucas said. “It allows us to look to having one less stop in this incredible bureaucracy we have at city hall.”