Re: **Letter to the Mayor, City Council, and Interim City Manager**

Henry -

I have addressed this distinction with you in a previous email, but happy to do so again.

The but-for test is built for one situation: a private party asks the city to give up or redirect future tax revenue to support its investment. The question is whether the incentive changes that private decision, and whether the amount is more than the project needs to reach a market return. The developer decides whether to build, and the developer keeps the return. The test keeps public dollars from raising that return above what’s needed to get the project built.

A city-sponsored project is different. There’s no private investment decision for the city to “induce,” because the public is the one deciding and investing. Asking whether the city would act without its own money doesn’t make sense. The better questions are these: Is this a public priority? Is it the best use of the money compared with the alternatives? Can we afford it over its full life? Is there a return for the taxpayer? Is this improving the community? Who bears the risk if projections fall short? Those questions get answered through the budget and capital process, in public meetings, and by a recorded vote of the Governing Body. That isn’t a lower bar. It’s a different one, and elected officials are directly accountable for it.

JEDO is also a separate body with its own funding source, board and approval process. The city’s TIF, CID and RHID policies don’t govern JEDO decisions. That doesn’t put those decisions beyond scrutiny. It means they go through a different review, which for Innovation Center 2.0 included economic and cost information presented in open meetings.

Where you have a point is the overlap. When a public/private partnership project ends up sending benefit to a particular private party, such as through a lease, a sale or an operating agreement, the public should see an account of that private benefit and whether the public share was proportionate. And in those cases, the private entity is going to need to be willing to provide some additional financial transparency. Consistency doesn’t require the identical technical test everywhere. It does require that every use of public resources can answer the same basic questions: what does the public pay, what does it get, and who carries the risk.

As I have also indicated, I am open to a future review of our but-for test thresholds.

Thank you,

Spencer

Spencer L. Duncan

Mayor, City of Topeka

785-207-8985

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From: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2026 12:09 PM
To: Leigha Boling <lboling@topeka.org>
Cc: Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>; Governing Body <governingbody@topeka.org>; City Clerk <cclerk@topeka.org>; MCRE Media <mcre1.9999@blogger.com>; City Manager <citymanager@topeka.org>; Michael A. Webb <mawebb@topeka.org>
Subject: Re: **Letter to the Mayor, City Council, and Interim City Manager**

 

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Subject: Re: But-For Analysis

Leigha,

Thank you for the thoughtful and thorough reply. I appreciate the time you put into explaining the City's reasoning, and I agree that public dollars deserve careful stewardship.

I'm struggling with consistency, though. If the test is meant to make sure the City gives no more help than a project needs, I'd welcome some insight into how that standard was applied to the AT&T building incentive and the hotel incentive. From the outside, the benefits of those deals seem to have gone mostly to Jeff White, Cody Foster, and the hotel's consultants, not to the broader community.

I'd also gently ask how we weigh the dollars that go to GO Topeka for work that doesn't always produce actual development, compared with what it pays in salaries. If we hold small applicants to a strict cost-benefit test, it seems fair to hold everyone involved in economic development to the same standard.

My hope is simple. The everyday, humble people who want to build something in Topeka, the Walker Bassets of the world, should be the last ones carrying the cost and burden of a but-for test. Maybe it's time to step back and ask how we can make developing in Topeka easier for everyone. That would be fair across the board.

I'd welcome the chance to talk this through with you anytime.

Respectfully,
Henry McClure
(762) 291-2765

On Fri, Nov 13, 2026 at 6:30 AM Leigha Boling <lboling@topeka.org> wrote:

Mayor and Governing Body Members,

 

The City's use of a but-for analysis is intended to ensure that economic development incentives are limited to the level of public assistance necessary to make a project financially feasible at a market rate of return. Because incentives involve the commitment of public resources and foregoing potential future tax revenue, the City has a responsibility to evaluate whether a project would proceed without assistance and whether the requested incentive is financially justified at the scale and depth requested.

 

The but-for analysis provides an additional layer of financial review by evaluating development costs, projected returns, the developer's anticipated return with and without incentives, and capitalization rates in comparison to similar projects and markets. While not perfect, it is a tool to bring rigor to the City’s review of incentives requests, many running into the millions of dollars.

 

This is not an uncommon practice. Columbia Capital has indicated that most of its municipal clients, in Kansas and elsewhere, have adopted some form of a policy-based but-for analysis, including Overland Park, Shawnee, Lawrence, and Merriam. Columbia Capital also notes that initial developer incentive requests frequently represent the maximum assistance available under state law, rather than the amount actually necessary to make a project financially feasible. Without an independent financial review, public agencies would largely rely on developer representations regarding the amount of assistance needed.

 

With respect to the 2024 Legislative Post Audit (LPA), the audit discusses the difficulty of accurately measuring the but-for percentage. It does not recommend eliminating but-for analyses or conclude that they have no value as a policy tool. LPA notes that a but-for analysis involves assumptions, financial projections, and professional judgment. It is intended to inform the City's decision-making, not provide a definitive guarantee of whether a project would otherwise occur.

 

Recognizing that the methodology is not perfect and involves assumptions and professional judgment, the difficulty of measuring something does not mean it is not worth evaluating. The City is making decisions involving public resources and future tax revenues on behalf of itself and other taxing jurisdictions, and the but-for analysis provides a consistent framework to evaluate financial need, apply appropriate scrutiny, and maintain accountability in the use of public incentives.

 

Ultimately, the Governing Body adopted the but-for test to ensure the City does not over-incentivize development or provide more public assistance than is necessary to make a project financially feasible. Staff do not have the authority to waive or deviate from this adopted policy. Any decision to make an exception rests solely with the Governing Body. The analysis is not intended to prevent development, but to help ensure that public incentives are appropriately justified and that the City provides no more assistance than necessary.

 

Thank you,

Leigha Boling

Economic Development Director

City of Topeka

215 SE 7th Street, Topeka, KS 66603

lboling@topeka.org

Phone: (785) 368-0974

 

NOTICE: This message and any attachments may be confidential and contain legally privileged information. If you are not an employee of the City of Topeka (see K.S.A. 75-6102(d)), we do not waive any legal protection that may apply such as attorney-client or work product privileges. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete the message and any attachments. Further, this communication is not intended to constitute, nor should it be relied upon, as legal advice to you.

 

From: Henry McClure <mcre13@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2026 5:18 PM
To: Spencer Duncan <sduncan@topeka.org>; Governing Body <governingbody@topeka.org>; City Clerk <cclerk@topeka.org>; MCRE Media <mcre1.9999@blogger.com>; City Manager <citymanager@topeka.org>; Leigha Boling <lboling@topeka.org>
Subject: **Letter to the Mayor, City Council, and Interim City Manager**

 

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November 11, 2026

Mayor Spencer Duncan  
Members of the Topeka City Council  
Interim City Manager Michael Webb  
City of Topeka  
215 SE 7th Street  
Topeka, KS 66603

cc: Leigha Boling, Director of Economic Development

Dear Mayor Duncan, Councilmembers, and Interim City Manager Webb:

I am writing about the City’s continued reliance on a local “but-for” requirement for private RHID, TIF, and related incentive applications, and about who is being asked to administer and defend it.

The City’s own September 2026 housing study says Topeka needs 4,220 additional housing units over the next 20 years—roughly 210 units a year. Median home values rose 63% from 2019 to 2025. Rents are higher, inventory is tight, and the June 2026 Point-in-Time count still found 460 people experiencing homelessness in Topeka/Shawnee County. Against those numbers, the City has paid Columbia Capital Management approximately $1.85 million in municipal advisory and consulting fees across 95 invoices over more than a decade. Of that total, $136,500 was for RHID consulting on nine invoices covering projects that include Riverstone (Meier’s Place), Sherwood Village Park, Union at Tower District, Project View, 3D Homes, Johnson-Betts Meadows, and Windward Estates. Private applicants are required to fund the analysis under the City’s RHID policy (Resolution 9695 and earlier versions). The stated purpose is to show that, without the subsidy, the project could not proceed or could not meet the City’s housing goals.

In its October 2024 report *Estimating the Economic Impacts of Tax Increment Financing Districts* (R-24-012), the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit examined the same “but-for” concept. The auditors described it as an estimate of how likely it is that development would have occurred without the incentive. They stated that accurate estimation is very difficult and requires substantial amounts of data. They further concluded that whether development would have occurred in an individual district is an inherently unknowable question because it depends heavily on the private business decisions of the developers themselves. For those reasons they did not analyze the but-for percentage.

Kansas law does not require a but-for test for TIF, CID, or RHID. The City created the requirement as local policy.

Columbia Capital Management is a Merriam firm that provides municipal advisory and investment-management services to local governments. Jeff White, its Managing Member, spent more than a decade in local-government management (city manager, assistant city manager, department head, budget director) before joining the firm in 2001. He holds an MPA in Local Government Management. The firm is a registered municipal advisor and investment adviser; it is not a private real-estate developer. It has performed the financial analyses and but-for determinations the City requires.

Councilmember Karen Hiller has publicly supported retaining the but-for requirement. Her professional background is as executive director of Housing and Credit Counseling, Inc., a Topeka nonprofit focused on tenant-landlord counseling, homebuyer and consumer-credit education, budgeting, and advocacy, until her retirement in 2007. She has served on the Council since 2009 and has described herself as a policy wonk and budget hawk. That experience is relevant to housing counseling and neighborhood issues. It does not include underwriting private development projects, modeling private investment decisions, or performing the kind of counterfactual analysis the state’s auditors said is inherently unknowable.

Director Boling’s background is in city procurement, budgeting, grants management, and municipal transactions. She holds an MBA and is a Certified Public Manager. She now oversees economic-development incentives. That is public-sector administrative experience. It is not private-developer experience.

If the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit concluded that the core but-for question is inherently unknowable because it turns on private developer decisions the auditors could not reliably measure, on what basis does the City accept Columbia Capital’s determination of the same question? What specific private-developer insight or data does the City believe the firm possesses that the state’s nonpartisan auditors said does not exist in reliable form? And what in Councilmember Hiller’s or Director Boling’s professional backgrounds equips them to evaluate, endorse, or “sharpshoot” those determinations—or the private development decisions themselves?

The City’s own housing numbers show a real shortage. The process it has built requires private applicants to pay for an analysis the state’s auditors declined to perform because the counterfactual is unknowable. The people administering and defending that process are municipal advisors and long-time public-sector practitioners, not private developers.

I ask the Governing Body and staff to review Report R-24-012, the City’s RHID/TIF/CID policies, and the cumulative payments to Columbia Capital. Please explain why the City continues to require private applicants to fund a but-for analysis that the state’s own auditors treated as inherently unknowable, and why the current decision-makers are considered qualified to rely on or defend it.

I am available to discuss this. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

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

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Henry McClure 

Time kills deals

785-383-9994

 

www.henrymcclure.live

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Henry McClure 

Time kills deals

785-383-9994

www.henrymcclure.live