Missouri news

Kansas City still owes more than $200,000 in police overtime for Super Bowl parade

KCUR | By Peggy Lowe

Published April 26, 2023 at 5:08 AM CDT

Kansas City Chiefs players, family, and staff move south on Grand Avenue during the Super Bowl victory parade on February 15, 2023.

On the eve of the NFL Draft, the Kansas City Police Department says it has twice asked for overtime payments from the city from the last NFL event, the February Super Bowl victory parade. The Board of Police Commissioners also questioned Mayor Quinton Lucas about the $13,000 spent on sending his security detail to Arizona for the game.

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners complained Tuesday that the city owes the department $200,400 solely in overtime costs for officers working during the Super Bowl parade.

Part of that figure includes $13,000 for Mayor Quinton Lucas’s two-person security detail to travel with him to Arizona to watch the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles.

KCPD has sent two letters with formal requests for the overtime payment, said Deputy Chief Derek McCollum. The letter, signed by Chief Stacey Graves, said the parade required 805 law enforcement personnel: 530 on-duty and off-duty officers and another 275 from regional agencies.

KCPD didn't provide numbers for the overall cost of KCPD’s part of the parade on February 15, which included patrols that started before dawn, street closures, security, traffic direction and other services.

Commissioner Cathy Dean asked when — or if — the city would pay it.

“We’re going to be out of money,” she said. “We were going to use that for salaries.”

Dean also zeroed in on the $13,000 paid in overtime to Lucas’s two bodyguards in Arizona.

“So when you asked us to send your security detail to Arizona, you never intended to pay for that?” Dean directly asked Lucas.

“This seems like a personal attack,” Lucas said, offering the commissioners the option of eliminating his detail if they chose to.

Commissioner Dawn Cramer joined Dean in asking when KCPD would see the money and whether it should come out of the city budget. She also asked what it meant for police costs for this weekend's NFL Draft downtown.

“We’re to assume were not going to get paid for that, either?” Cramer said.

Lucas said metro-area agencies and the Kansas City Sports Commission cover most events like these out of their budgets. The city has already budgeted $3 million for the NFL Draft and will add $1.5 million later, he said.

Commissioner Mark Tolbert said he’s worried about the city’s image and safety during big events like the World Series parade, the NFL Draft and the World Cup.

“We got to figure this out because we’re getting more and more events,” Tolbert said.