Residents and commissioners weigh how to spend CoreCivic impact funds; council signals priority for legal reserve

Public comment at the Leavenworth City Commission’s June 23 meeting centered on concerns about the city’s special use permit and how the city should spend CoreCivic impact payments.

William Rogers, a resident who spoke during public comment, criticized the oversight of the CoreCivic special use permit, calling the oversight committee insufficiently informed and urging the commission to scrutinize the permit’s clauses and enforcement. "Your oversight committee are probably…not educated on this matter," Rogers said, arguing the commission could have altered permit language and did not.

Daniel Macintosh, another resident, urged the commission to dedicate a sizable portion of the CoreCivic impact funds to an enforcement or legal-defense reserve. Macintosh said the onetime payment and the SUP’s history make relying on voluntary compliance risky and cited reported detention conditions, including a named detainee he said experienced delayed care. "Not having funds dedicated to defending the city's right to enforce our laws is equivalent to building a house on a fault line but not purchasing earthquake insurance," Macintosh told commissioners, and recommended setting aside $400,000 as a contingency for future legal costs.

City staff provided the factual breakdown behind that recommendation. Staff said CoreCivic made a $1.5 million one-time payment; roughly $860,000 of that has been applied to legal fees already incurred, leaving about $631,000 unspent. In addition, CoreCivic agreed to ongoing payments that total about $33,333 per month (roughly $400,000 annually), split as $150,000 per year for police services and $250,000 per year for general administrative services.

Staff laid out internal guidelines for spending the one-time funds: avoid creating ongoing personnel costs that could outlast payments, spend for clear community benefit, and, where possible, use impact funds for capital items or to leverage grant matches. Staff also listed candidate projects: replacement mobile data terminals (MDTs) in police vehicles, adding a second police K9, a live-burn training simulator and additional bunker gear for the fire department, new probation tracking software, and a downtown rebranding effort.

Commissioners debated priorities and feasibility at length. Several commissioners said they want a legal reserve in case the city needs to enforce the SUP again; suggested figures included placing about $300,000–$400,000 into a reserve or grant-matching fund that could be used for legal defense if needed. At the same time, commissioners expressed support for replacing critical police equipment (MDTs), investing in certain fire department capital items, and directing some funds toward downtown infrastructure or grant-matching to leverage outside dollars.

No final appropriation was adopted. Staff was directed to prepare concrete "bucket" scenarios showing how different allocations (for example, $300,000 reserved for legal with remaining funds divided among police, fire and downtown projects) would affect the 2026 budget and bring options back for formal budget discussion at the July 13 all-day budget workshop.

What’s next: The commission asked staff to present detailed allocation scenarios at the July budget meeting; any expenditures will not be made until the city confirms it has collected sufficient impact fees to cover the planned purchases.