How much will the City of St. Louis spend on policing now that the police are under state control? One thing is for certain: It will be a lot more than in years past.
Last week, the governor-appointed board of commissioners signed off on 7 percent raises that Mayor Cara Spencer has said the city can ill afford. But that’s only one of the ways the new state-run board is increasing costs. The law that gave the state control of the department mandates the city spend 25 percent of its general revenue budget on the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department by 2028.
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In the last year prior to the police going back under the control of a governor-appointed board of commissioners, the city spent only about 23 percent of general revenue on the department. And on top of mandating an increase, the state law excludes tens of millions of dollars of costs to the city related to police from counting toward that 25 percent. Using the most recent set of numbers available, it appears the city will be ponying up at least $64 million in addition to the 25 percent.
Budget Director Paul Payne tells SLM that police pension costs, which do vary from year to year, run a little more than $39 million annually. But the state takeover legislation states that “any pension and retirement costs shall be excluded from the calculation of expenses for the maintenance of the police force”—even as the same takeover law requires the city to cover the cost of health insurance for retirees for the rest of their lives. Those retirement costs, including health insurance, total $20 million, Payne says, adding $59 million in additional costs beyond the funding requirement.
Payne added in an email to SLM, “While I believe the City is currently meeting its obligation under the statute, suffice to say any spending on police that is excluded from the calculation will make it harder to continually meet the funding mandate.”
The bill’s sponsor is notably unsympathetic to any concerns from City Hall. State Representative Brad Christ (R-St. Louis County) says that the 25 percent mandate relates specifically to the department’s operational costs. As to what qualified as an operational cost, he says he based that on the decades prior to 2012, when the department had been under state control. “None of this is a surprise,” he says. “If the city wasn’t prepared for it, or doesn’t know how to operate under it, they can look at how they operated under it for the previous 150-plus years.”
But sorting out who handles what—and what’s allowed under general fund revenue—isn’t necessarily simple. For example: There are currently approximately 70 lawsuits involving the police in state and federal courts currently in a legal limbo. The attorney general’s office has taken over the defense of those lawsuits, but as Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger reported late last month, those dozens of suits are being held up because it is unclear who the defendant is—the city or the state-controlled board? That matters because the state enjoys some types of immunity the city doesn’t.
Christ is currently pushing a new bil would settle the matter and put the liability squarely with the city.
Unsurprisingly, Aldermanic President Megan Green is not a fan of that. “Now that it is under state control, it should really be the state’s responsibility,” Green says. (She’s currently suing the state to try to undo the takeover.) Christ rebuts the criticism. “They do have control,” he claims, pointing that the board is composed of commissioners who have to be confirmed by the state Senate. “Two Democrat senators from the city will have input on who these police commissioners are.”
The new bill from Christ would also exclude litigation costs from the 25 percent mandate. Payne says that the city has budgeted $5.6 million for police litigation for fiscal year 2026.
But it’s possible that the actual litigation costs could well exceed that total. One year ago this week, Dennis Ball-Bey won a $18.75 million judgment against the department against the city over the fatal police shooting of his son. (The city is currently seeking a new trial in the case.)
The law firm representing Ball-Bey, Khazaeli Wyrsch, has two more cases set to go to trial on the same day. Both are against the city and involve alleged police misconduct. Green is the plaintiff in one of them; the other is brought by individuals who say they were wrongfully pepper sprayed.
“We are excited about finally trying these cases,” attorney Javad Khazaeli tells SLM.
It’s worth noting that an $18.75 million judgment against the city is an outlier. Most judgments concerning police misconduct are not that big, and generally, the city’s bill is even less if both sides can settle ahead of trial. However, the legal limbo of the police’s transition to state control makes reaching that settlement difficult. Khazaeli, for one, says it’s been hard to know who even to negotiate with.
Adds Khazaeli, “It’s just weird that there is no one that has the authority to discuss settling them.”
Hear more about this story from Krull on The 314 Podcast.
