St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy will stay on the job for four more years after the city's Board of Police Commissioners approved a contract extension through October 2030, along with a raise bumping his annual base salary to $295,000. The board says it moved to lock Tracy down because other cities had shown interest in hiring him away, and as part of the deal, Tracy will give up a position as an educator at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Before the October 2026 extension, Tracy received a $175,000 annual salary from the city and a separate $100,000 annual payment from a nonprofit, according to earlier reporting cited by FOX 2. When Tracy was first hired in January 2023 as the 36th police commissioner in department history — and the first chief brought in from outside the department's ranks in its 214-year history, according to KSDK — his pay package combined a $175,000 city-funded base with a $100,000 annual stipend from the nonprofit St. Louis Police Foundation. The separate payment was part of public debate over outside money influencing municipal policing, per reporting from ProPublica; FOX 2 reported that Tracy would fulfill his obligations under the outside arrangement through the end of 2026.
Board member Chris Saracino said the extension was about retaining one of the country's top police chiefs, calling it a time-sensitive investment in St. Louis's future and safer neighborhoods. Tracy, for his part, said his family and he are proud of their roots in St. Louis and that the commitment to serve the city is personal to him.
The Numbers Behind the Deal
The board's rationale leans heavily on crime statistics. SLMPD figures cited in the contract decision show overall crime in St. Louis down 45% since Tracy became chief in 2023, murders down 43%, and juvenile shooting incidents down 60% over the same span. Tracy has credited the reductions to data-driven policing, accountability measures, and community partnerships.
Those local numbers track with year-end CompStat data showing St. Louis homicides fell to 141 in 2025 — the lowest annual total in 12 years — alongside a 16% drop in overall crime and a 28% drop in shooting incidents compared with 2024, according to KSDK. City leaders have noted those reductions came despite community disruption caused by a severe tornado in May 2025. Through the first half of 2026, police recorded 63 homicides, down from 71 during the same period a year earlier and marking the city's lowest first-half homicide total in more than a decade, per St. Louis Public Radio.
Union Says Rank-and-File Were Left Waiting
The St. Louis Police Officers' Association sharply criticized how the extension came together, saying the board approved Tracy's raise during what the union described as a closed session. Association president Martin Garcia said the group was deeply disappointed by the contract extension and the accompanying salary increase, and the union argued that fast-tracking Tracy's deal while civilian employees wait for a new contract is difficult to defend.
Civilian and professional staff within the department have worked without an updated contract since June 2025 and currently receive wages below market rates, the union said. Rank-and-file officers, meanwhile, earn thousands less than their counterparts in St. Louis County, according to the association, which said it opposes outside pressure overshadowing the needs of department employees and that staff deserve the same urgency and consideration given to the chief.
The union's complaints come as the department grapples with staffing shortages and the loss of several hundred officers. Union officials have criticized regional salary disparities. The current tension echoes a March 2023 deal in which the city and the police union approved raises of $6,000 to $8,000 for officers and sergeants — their largest pay increases in two decades — after rank-and-file officers had gone nearly three years without a contract.
Contract Extension Lands Amid State Takeover Fight
Tracy's new deal was approved not by the mayor's office but by a state-controlled Board of Police Commissioners, a structure created when Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed House Bill 495 into law in March 2025. That law shifted authority over the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department away from city hall and back to a board appointed primarily by the governor, reversing a 2012 statewide referendum that had granted local control to the city, according to Police1.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer filed a lawsuit in April 2026 challenging the state takeover law as an unconstitutional unfunded mandate, after the board proposed a budget allocation exceeding $250 million that city leaders warned would force severe cuts to municipal services.
Tracy's agreement to leave his educator role at UMSL was part of the new contract.
