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ST. LOUIS — Last summer, an outsider was hired to write and edit official communications for St. Louis police Chief Robert Tracy.

The outsider, David Karas, isn’t a St. Louisan. He knows Tracy from the chief’s time at the Wilmington police department in Delaware, where Karas is still employed full-time.

And Karas was not paid for his work here by the St. Louis police department. He was paid by the private St. Louis Police Foundation.

Officials here claim the arrangement has saved taxpayers money. But it also skirts public records laws and avoids disclosing contracts and pay details.

Karas has written press releases and op-eds for Tracy, posted on the department’s social media pages, and produced promotional videos. He also oversaw the project to , working with Inverse Paradox, a Philadelphia-based web design firm.

Officials acknowledge both Karas and Inverse Paradox were paid by the police foundation. But the police department and the foundation each refused multiple requests from the Post-Dispatch seeking contracts, invoices and other documents that would detail how much they were paid and the process used to select them.

The St. Louis Police Foundation, a private nonprofit controlled by , traditionally has provided money for training and equipment for the police department. But the foundation increasingly is in the business of funding employees at the department. Chief Tracy receives $100,000 annually from the foundation, more than a third of his total $275,000 compensation. And since last summer, the foundation has provided $1.5 million to add extra police patrols downtown by paying officers $15 to $25 more per hour than they typically would earn for overtime.

John Chasnoff, a longtime police accountability activist in St. Louis, is among those who have raised concerns about the foundation’s payments and donations to police.

“It’s essentially privatizing the police when [nearly] 40% of a government official’s salary is being paid by a private organization,� Chasnoff said. “How much is it skewing the kinds of activities that the police engage in when they are not getting their money from public sources but from people with special interests?�

Karas and Inverse Paradox are the latest independent contractors known to be doing work for the police department on the private police foundation’s dime.

No other individual contractors or employees have been paid by the foundation to do work supporting the police department since January 2023, the department said.

A spokesman for St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones praised the foundation as “a steadfast partner in our work to achieve a safer St. Louis.�

“They helped to make our search for a new police chief nationally viable,� spokesman Conner Kerrigan said in an email Wednesday. And the foundation’s assistance revamping the website, he added, would lead to “increased accessibility and transparency when it comes to policing in St. Louis.�

But Kerrigan would not comment on the foundation’s refusal to release records regarding Karas and Inverse Paradox.

Neither Karas nor Neil Harner, the president and CEO of Inverse Paradox, responded to multiple requests for comment.

Heavy workload

Karas began moonlighting for St. Louis last July, according to police department spokesman Mitch McCoy.

“He was asked to provide support and technical assistance to SLMPD and the Public Affairs and Information Division, especially given the division’s limited staffing but high demands,� McCoy told the newspaper by email. “Chief Tracy identified significant opportunities to enhance the department’s information-sharing efforts, and David was able to evaluate past practices and assist with implementing improvements.�

Karas had previously worked with Tracy during Tracy’s tenure as chief of Wilmington’s police department from 2017 to 2022. Karas earned $118,150 last year as police policy and communications director in Wilmington, according to a compiled by The News Journal.

Emails obtained by the Post-Dispatch show Karas in frequent contact with Tracy and his chief of staff, Monet Cintron, as well as other St. Louis police department employees. Like Karas, Cintron previously worked for Tracy in Wilmington.

Police department employees here sent or received more than 900 emails involving Karas between December and April, the department found in response to a Post-Dispatch records request.

It took the department more than two months to release a subset of 50 of those emails, and it heavily redacted some of them, citing a provision of state law that allows governments to close records related to scientific or technological innovations in which the owner has a proprietary interest. After the newspaper appealed, the department removed those redactions.

A review of the 50 emails shows that, among other things, Karas helped write a press release on reductions in crime in 2023, an on the same topic for The Missouri Times political website and newspaper, slides for a presentation to Ferguson-based industrial giant Emerson in January, a letter to be used in the Police Foundation’s annual report, and Tracy’s monthly column online. Chief Tracy would forward drafts of letters and speeches to Karas for his feedback, including a formal letter to 13th Ward Alderwoman Pamela Boyd.

According to the emails, Cintron, Tracy’s chief of staff, informed key players in November that the department would be using an outside firm to overhaul the website.

“The Foundation is supporting a partnership with a web design firm, which will be working over the next several months to create a new web platform for SLMPD with a Wordpress framework,� she wrote to Dele Oredugba, the department’s director of information technology, and Sgt. Charles Wall, a public information officer. “This will allow our department to launch a newly designed website without adding such a massive project to the already full plates of your team.�

In his reply, Oredugba pointed out several potential pitfalls of allowing outside contractors access to the server hosting the website, but seemed resigned to the decision.

“As this is a done deal, I will ask my team to figure out how to make this project successful, as you requested,� he wrote.

In mid-December, Cintron introduced Karas to Oredugba, Wall, and others as a point person on the web redesign. Emails show he took the lead on reorganizing content on the website, and served as a liaison between the department and Inverse Paradox.

Karas made a site visit to St. Louis in January as he spearheaded the website revamp. He also worked on a new effort to create promotional videos for the department.

Emails show that Michelle Craig, president and executive director of the St. Louis Police Foundation, was involved in the videos as well.

Records runaround

In February, Chief Tracy announced in a that the department would be “launching a new website later this year.�

A few weeks later, the Post-Dispatch asked the police department to provide quotes, contracts, scopes of work, requests for proposal or other documents related to the redesign.

There were no responsive records, the police department claimed. The reason? The redesign was “being handled outside this department,� Erika Zaza, the department’s Sunshine Law administrator, said in April.

Kerrigan, the mayor’s spokesman, later disclosed that the St. Louis Police Foundation was funding the revamp and directed a reporter to reach out to Craig, the foundation’s president, for details.

Craig confirmed the foundation had approved “the request for support of the new website for SLMPD,� but declined to provide further details.

“Please reach out to the department for specifics regarding the website, process, timing etc.,� Craig wrote in an email exchange with the newspaper.

“The Foundation is simply providing the funding. The department is managing everything else,� she wrote after the newspaper replied.

“I’m sure the department can answer what you need,� she added later.

But when the newspaper submitted a new records request to the department, seeking copies of any request for support or other agreement with the foundation, the department again claimed not to have any responsive records.

“I have been informed of the following, in response to your request — ‘There is no documentation of this request or an agreement between SLMPD and the Foundation,’� Zaza wrote.

When the newspaper submitted a similar records request to the foundation, Craig provided general information about the projects it supports, but refused to provide the requested documents and details.

“The St. Louis Police Foundation is a privately-run nonprofit corporation not bound by the Missouri Sunshine Law,� Craig wrote.

This pattern of runaround and refusal played out again in July when the newspaper sought documents and details about the work of Karas and Inverse Paradox.

“Any questions related to specific costs for projects supported by the Foundation should be sent to the Foundation,� said McCoy, the department spokesman.

A week later, Craig confirmed that the foundation paid Karas, but reiterated her prior stance.

“The Police Foundation does not intend to provide documents or communicate further regarding this request,� she wrote.

The website debuted to the public in June.

In a press release announcing it, Chief Tracy said it “not only increases our transparency, but also holds us accountable to the community we serve.�