Read them as two different opinions. One is your case. The other is the one they will wave at you, and it does not say what they will claim it says.

2017-015 is about leftover money, not the program

Attorney General Opinion 2017-015 was written October 30, 2017, to Lisa Robertson, then City Attorney of Topeka. She asked two questions.

1. Does the law prohibit the City from spending excess sales-tax proceeds on items that were not listed on the ballot?
2. If it does, may the City decide what counts as “economic development”?

The ballot she put in front of the Attorney General is the 2004 ballot, not the ad and not the 2014 renewal. It repealed the quarter-cent the voters passed on November 7, 2000, and replaced it with a half-cent from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2016. The listed uses were economic development plus seven named road and bridge jobs: Wanamaker, 45th, Croco, 29th, 21st, the Topeka Boulevard bridge and county bridges, and the 46th and Topeka Boulevard intersection.

Derek Schmidt’s answer is narrow. K.S.A. 12-187(g) requires the purpose on the ballot. The 2004 interlocal then pooled the City’s share and the County’s share and spent that pool on economic development and those seven projects. K.S.A. 12-189 says that once a special project has been paid for, revenue above the cost of that project goes to the general fund. K.S.A. 12-192 puts a city’s apportioned share in the city general fund.

The holding, in the opinion’s own words, is that nothing in Kansas law requires Topeka to spend that excess on the ballot list. Once the listed purposes were satisfied and the leftover dollars hit the general fund, the governing body could spend them for a public purpose.

Question 2 was never answered. Because excess money was no longer tied to the ballot list, the Attorney General said it was unnecessary to decide who defines economic development.

What 2017-015 does not hold:

• It does not say the economic-development stream itself may be spent on anything the board calls worthy.
• It does not define economic development, and it refused the chance to.
• It does not mention GO Topeka, grants, banquets, churches, or scholarships.
• It does not construe the tax that started January 1, 2017, and runs toward 2032. The opinion is about the tax that died December 31, 2016, and about dollars left after that tax’s projects were done.
• It does not say “we are still performing the contract” equals “the spending is legal.” That sentence is the Mayor’s, not the Attorney General’s.

If someone tells you 2017-015 freed the half-cent, hand them the first sentence of the question Robertson asked. The word is excess. Excess means money above the cost of a finished, pledged project. It does not mean this year’s GO Topeka appropriation.

2001-014 is the purpose rule

Opinion 2001-014, March 21, 2001, to Senator Jim Barone, is the one that matches the ad.

The synopsis is one sentence long. A city or county may use retailers’ sales-tax proceeds for economic development, provided the electorate approves such use.

The rest of the opinion is deference, and you should know it before they quote it at you. The Attorney General said public funds may be used for what promotes the public welfare, courts defer to a governing body on that, and economic development is a valid public purpose. He then said a city could give sales-tax money to a school if the governing body found that better schools attract industry. A court would probably not second-guess that finding.

That is as far as it goes. The electorate still has to approve the use. Home rule lets a board color inside “economic development.” It does not let a board repaint the ballot. A later opinion, 2012-017, says the same thing from the other direction: there is no statute that lets a city or county change the purpose of a sales tax the voters already adopted. You repeal it, or you pass a new tax. You do not amend it by practice.

2001-014 will be their best quote, and it is a real quote. A board gets room to decide that a workforce class, a site, or even a school lab is economic development because it helps land a payroll. A court will not micromanage a close call. A Freedom Fund table, a church dinner, or an awards-night sponsorship is not a close call unless someone is willing to write, in public, that the dinner is what brings the plant. 2001-014 requires that determination. It does not presume it. And 2017-015 left the definition question open on purpose.

How the two opinions fit the checks

Opinion	What it decides	What it does not decide
2001-014	Economic development is a lawful use of a sales tax only if voters approved that use. A board gets deference on close calls that actually serve that use.	It never mentions banquets, grants, or GO Topeka.
2017-015	After the 2005–2016 tax’s pledged projects were paid, leftover dollars in the City’s general fund were not frozen to the old ballot list.	It never defines economic development. It never frees the annual JEDO appropriation. It never reaches the tax now in force.

The Howey checks were not leftover bridge money. They were paid out of the live economic-development contract, the money JEDO sends GO Topeka to carry out the program. That stream is still inside the purpose the voters approved. 2017-015 says the purpose controls until the project is paid and a true excess exists. 2001-014 says the purpose is economic development, and only economic development, because that is the use the electorate approved.

Put the two opinions together and the question the Mayor would not ask is the only question left: is a banquet economic development under the ballot the voters actually marked? 2017-015 refused to answer it. 2001-014 says the voters’ approval is what makes the spending lawful. Neither opinion is a permission slip for the civic list.