Mo. Police Force Sees Ranks Grow in '25: 'We Truly are Building Back'

The Kansas City Police Department saw a significant increase in the number of sworn officers over the past year.

The department will end 2025 with 1,148 officers on the force. That’s an increase of 51 sworn officers from a year ago, Police Chief Stacey Graves said Tuesday during the monthly meeting of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners.

“We truly are building back KCPD,” Graves said. “As you see in the numbers, and even as we’ve had an incident this morning in our city, there’s still a lot of work for us to do in 2026. But we’re up for the task.”

For years, police leaders said they have struggled to retain officers and looked for new ways to increase their numbers.

In 2022, the police board voted to allow officers to live within a 30-mile radius of Kansas City. Previously, they were required to live within city limits.

The police department also took steps to raise starting salaries as an incentive. The current starting salary for a Kansas City police officer is $65,004.

Police union officials have previously said the starting salary for new officers in Kansas City had ranked among the lowest of surrounding law enforcement agencies. Many officers eventually left Kansas City for better paying jobs in neighboring police departments.

A study from the Police Executive Research Forum earlier this year found that departments hired 4.4% more in 2024 than in 2023, and 8.9% more when compared to 2019.

“Those among medium-sized agencies hired 6.4% more officers last year than in 2023 and 32.7% more than in 2019,” the study reads.

Graves said the department is seeing more candidates entering its police academy.

There are 38 applicants currently in the academy. A new recruitment class beginning in January will have up to 50 police candidates, she said.

Even with the January police cadet class, Graves said the department would be 21 officers short of the budgeted staffing level of 1,258 officers.

“Which is why we have requested funding for 50 more officers in the next fiscal year’s budget, bringing the total number of funded police officer positions to 1,309,” she told the police board.

The police department has requested $417 million, or a 21.6% increase, in funding from the city for next year. That increase is despite an expected $100 million shortfall, which prompted City Manager Mario Vasquez to direct city departments to freeze budget funding requests.

In October, when the budget request was given to the Kansas City Council, Mayor Quinton Lucas said that the police department was able to hire more officers. But the department’s overall budget request needed more discussion.

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