Cincinnati is bringing in some heavyweight legal firepower, quietly signing former U.S. Attorney Ken Parker to a one-year consulting deal that puts him at the center of the city’s public-safety strategy and reform talks.
Under the contract, Parker will advise city leaders on public safety, community engagement and departmental operations, with pay capped at $199,000 for the year and an initial hourly rate of $500. The agreement allows for a higher hourly rate if the city chooses to renew. He is slated to sit in on monthly strategy sessions with the police chief, help lead community listening events and make recommendations on policy reform, conflict resolution and key public-safety programs such as PIVOT and the city’s ACT for Cincy blueprint.
The hire came to light only after a local outlet obtained and reviewed the city contract, then reported its contents.
Contract spells out monthly meetings and listening sessions
A copy of the contract obtained by WCPO 9 News lays out Parker’s job description in detail. He is required to meet monthly with the police chief and city staff to review priorities, provide risk evaluations and advise the city solicitor and city manager on public-safety matters.
The agreement also calls on Parker to facilitate stakeholder conversations and to provide subject-matter expertise that could include serving as an expert witness or policy adviser. It specifically highlights the Cincinnati Police Department’s PIVOT program and the ACT for Cincy initiative as focus areas where he will be expected to offer recommendations and guidance on how to scale efforts.
The contract caps payment at $199,000 for the first year and sets the initial hourly rate at $500, with a renewal option that keeps the same annual cap but increases the hourly rate.
Parker spent more than two decades in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2021 to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, according to a U.S. Department of Justice announcement that notes his long federal prosecutorial career. After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he joined Taft’s Cincinnati office in 2025 as a partner, giving the city on-call outside counsel and front-line prosecutorial experience as it works through reform and day-to-day operations.
How the hire fits the city’s violence-reduction playbook
The consultancy is designed to plug directly into the city’s ACT for Cincy blueprint, a multi-pronged public-health strategy aimed at reducing gun violence by bundling prevention, youth supports and policing innovations into one coordinated approach. City of Cincinnati materials describing ACT for Cincy, along with related documents, highlight place-based policing tools and community programming that Parker’s contract flags as priorities for his review and potential scaling.
National civic-practice writeups describe PIVOT as a place-based investigations strategy that zeroes in on small geographic areas where violence tends to cluster, the exact sort of program that Parker is tasked with assessing under the agreement.
Timing and local budget context
The timing of Parker’s arrival lines up with a broader spending push. City leaders have recently steered millions of dollars into public-safety projects and programs, including a $5.4 million summer investment and other targeted moves meant to bolster violence-reduction work. Reporting on Cincinnati’s public-safety planning shows officials trying to thread the needle between prevention and enforcement while contending with budget pressures and operational tradeoffs.
Within that larger public-safety portfolio, the contract’s cap and hourly rates, set at $500 per hour in the first year and $550 per hour if renewed, make Parker’s consultancy a relatively compact line item, WCPO 9 News reported. The contract says he may also be called on to testify, advise on administrative hearings or assist with statewide reform efforts while under contract with the city.
Parker’s one-year agreement begins as ACT for Cincy community meetings and PIVOT operations continue across the city. The contract requires monthly stakeholder sessions and coordination among departments, setting up a year of regular check-ins between Parker and City Hall. Officials have not yet publicly shared additional details on how they plan to measure outcomes from the consultancy beyond what is spelled out in the contract that local media obtained and reported.
