Updated at 1:02 p.m. Wednesday to correct the timeline of the transition.
ST. LOUIS • Missouri has given the city Police Department back to city leaders.
The state’s voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition A Tuesday, effectively ending 151 years of state governance of the St. Louis Police Department.
“This is historic,†said Jeff Rainford, chief of staff to Mayor Francis Slay.
“It’s a huge achievement for Mayor Slay, and it’s a huge achievement for the city.â€
“It’s going to be one of those watershed moments,†Rainford said.
Proposition A reverses the 1861 law, signed at the start of the Civil War, that created a state board to govern the city Police Department.
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The governor-appointed commissioners who now run the department will step down at the end of this fiscal year, at the earliest, and the police will become a division of the city’s Department of Public Safety, under mayoral control.
Most pundits and officials expected the measure to pass.
Slay and other city politicians have been working toward it for years.
Financier and philanthropist Rex Sinquefield bankrolled a $2 million statewide campaign. And more than 400 elected officials across Missouri signed on.
Civil rights activists, however, argued that the new law restricts access to personnel records, effectively ending their hopes for civilian review of police crimes and misbehavior, they said.
And some police officers recently came out against it. St. Louis Police Officers Association President Sgt. Dave Bonenberger, elected by members on a platform opposing local control, urged his membership to vote against Prop A, saying that politicians just want control of officer pension funds, as well as preferential treatment from the department.
Still, few others argued against the structural change.
The Police Department is largely funded with city tax dollars — this year, it will get $172 million, more than one-third of the St. Louis general fund budget.
Yet neither the mayor nor the city’s legislative body, the Board of Aldermen, has had any direct control over policing.
The mayor holds a seat on the five-member commission that runs the department, but Slay has long argued that he can’t quickly order a change in tactics to respond to crime trends, hold the chief accountable for lax policing or tell the department how to spend city money.
St. Louis should eventually save a few million dollars a year in administrative efficiencies, leaders have said.
With the victory of Prop A, Kansas City will be the only city in the country that still lacks control of its police force.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James said his city wasn’t yet ready to be included as part of Prop A.