Re: Notice — half-cent sales-tax expenditures outside the 2014 ballot purpose; KORA request attached as Exhibit A

Karen Hiller
Member, Topeka City Council
Voting member, Joint Economic Development Organization
215 SE 7th Street
Topeka, KS 66603

Councilmember Hiller:

This letter puts you on notice, as a voting member of JEDO, that the economic-development slice of the Shawnee County half-cent retailers’ sales tax has been spent, for years, on uses the voters did not approve.

You are also on notice that I am submitting, with this letter, a Kansas Open Records Act request to the City of Topeka, Shawnee County, and JEDO for the twenty-five-year record of meals, hospitality, grants, contributions, sponsorships, and scholarships paid from that tax, together with the service agreements and any legal opinion on whether those payments were authorized. The request is Exhibit A. A copy is being sent to the City Clerk, the County Clerk, and the County Counselor.

K.S.A. 12-187(g) required the purpose on the ballot. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2001-014 allows sales-tax money for economic development only if the electorate approved that use. Attorney General Opinion 2017-015, issued to the City of Topeka on this tax, ties spending to the ballot and the city–county interlocal. The interlocal dedicated $5 million a year to an economic-development program — expand employment, strengthen the tax base, diversify the economy — not to a civic hospitality account.

JEDO has approved annual GO Topeka budgets that contain a lump line for “grants/sponsor/contrib/scholar” and a hospitality line. Approval of a category is not approval of an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet, a church dinner, a YWCA awards table, a ministry retreat, a Juneteenth festival sponsorship, or For the Culture KS. On the list Molly Howey sent May 6, 2024, the civic/banquet/church/festival slice for 2022–2023 was $93,235. The drawer those checks were filed in totaled $861,750. JEDO never had to say the word charity because the payees were parked behind Choose Topeka, PTAC, Forge, and pitch prizes.

A later service agreement and a later JEDO vote do not amend the ballot. The stack is the voters first, the interlocal second, the contractor third, the spreadsheet last. When 3 or 4 collide with 1, 1 controls. Kansas treats a municipal contract the government had no power to make as void. A party that contracts with a municipality is charged with knowing the municipality’s authority. Cash-basis law, K.S.A. 10-1119, voids a contract that violates the act. An appropriation for a municipal fund shall not be used for another purpose.

The question for you is not whether GO Topeka is popular with people who raise money for local races. The question is whether JEDO will keep signing the work order while the contractor spends pledged tax as goodwill.

If the board that governs this tax will not confine the money to the ballot, the public is entitled to ask which statutes you treat as optional. Voters did not grant JEDO a power to rank the law. They granted a purpose. I ask you, in writing:

1. Is an NAACP banquet, a church dinner, or a YWCA awards table economic development payable from the half-cent?
2. Will you require GO Topeka to split true deal incentives from contributions and sponsorships so the banquet cannot hide behind Choose Topeka again?
3. Will you vote to recover unauthorized payments and to stop any further draw that is not specified as a job, a plant, equipment, or training the ballot can support?

I expect a written answer. Silence is an answer. Exhibit A will show the twenty-five-year total if the custodians produce it. The Howey list and the adopted budgets are already enough to require a vote. What you do next is what will be measured.

Henry McClure
MCRE, LLC
3625 SW 29th Street #100
Topeka, KS 66614
785-383-9994
mcre13@gmail.com

Exhibit A 

Cc: Shawnee County Clerk; Shawnee County Counselor; JEDO records custodian
Subject: Kansas Open Records Act request — JEDO / GO Topeka expenditures, 2001–present

This is a request for public records under K.S.A. 45-215 et seq.

Please produce electronic copies of the following records in the possession of the City of Topeka, Shawnee County, or the Joint Economic Development Organization, from January 1, 2001 (or the earliest date the records exist) through the date of your response.

A. Spending

1. All payments, invoices, check registers, credit-card statements, and reimbursement files charged to half-cent sales-tax or JEDO/GO Topeka public funds for meals, food and beverage, hospitality, banquet or awards tables, event tickets, and related travel.
2. All grants, contributions, sponsorships, and scholarships paid from those funds, including payee, amount, date, and stated purpose.
3. The list of grants/contributions/sponsorships/scholarships Molly Howey provided on or about May 6, 2024, covering 2022 and 2023, and the same class of list for every other year.
4. Annual GO Topeka Budgets and Business Plans adopted by JEDO, including every line titled hospitality, program/event expense, or grants/sponsor/contrib/scholar.
5. Quarterly GO Topeka financial statements submitted to JEDO.
6. Annual totals, and a grand total, for items 1 and 2. If no grand total exists, say so and produce the year-by-year figures you have.

B. Contract and authority

7. Every JEDO–GO Topeka service agreement, amendment, automatic-renewal notice, and cash carry-forward agreement, including any clause that limits spending to the JEDO-approved budget.
8. The 2004 JEDO resolution on competitive bidding and proof of publication.
9. Any legal opinion, audit finding, or staff memo on whether a payment in A was authorized by the ballot, the interlocal, or the approved budget.

Henry McClure
MCRE, LLC
3625 SW 29th Street #100
Topeka, KS 66614
785-383-9994
mcre13@gmail.com