Look here, folks. A while back—May of 2024—I put up a post on the blog about this exact thing. Molly Howey, who was running GO Topeka at the time, sent over their list of grants, contributions, sponsorships, and scholarships from 2022 and 2023. You can still find it at mcremedia.blogspot.com if you want to see the whole thing with your own eyes. That list tells the story plain as day.
Sales tax money earmarked for economic development was going out the door to:
- New Mount Zion Baptist Church for community drive-thru dinners and back-to-school events
- Shampayne Lloyd Ministries for a “Victorious Woman Retreat”
- Topeka Center for Peace and Justice
- Topeka Family and Friends Juneteenth Celebration
- YWCA Northeast Kansas for scholarships and Women of Excellence dinners
- NAACP Topeka Branch for their Freedom Fund Banquet
- Oakland Garden and other community grower groups
- NOTO Arts and Entertainment District for “diversity and inclusion”
- A pet nursing hotel that won a pitch contest
Now listen close. None of those groups are evil. Most of them do work that some people care about. But they do not deserve a single dime of the half-cent sales tax that was sold to the public as economic development money. That tax is paid by every working man and woman in Shawnee County every time they buy something. It was never meant to be a community chest for churches, ministries, celebration committees, social advocacy groups, or pet hotels. Those are charitable causes. Charity starts at home—with people freely choosing to give out of their own pockets. When you force it through a sales tax and let a private group hand it out, it stops being charity and starts being a handout taken from taxpayers who never agreed to fund it.
Real economic development means jobs that put food on tables, payroll that grows the tax base, and businesses that expand and stay here. Writing checks to a women’s retreat or a Juneteenth event or a peace-and-justice center does none of that. It just feels good to the people writing the checks.
And here’s where the rubber meets the road. During the budget process—every single year when JEDO and GO Topeka decide where that money goes—common sense says if you keep allocating it to the wrong places, the public is going to suffer. Every dollar that goes to a church dinner or an arts diversity program or a ministry retreat is a dollar that is not available for real job incentives, workforce training that leads to actual paychecks, or shovel-ready sites that could bring employers to town. Over time that adds up. Fewer good jobs. More of our young people packing up and leaving. Higher pressure on the rest of the tax base. Roads and bridges and everything else that actually keeps the place running get squeezed. The public pays the price while the handouts keep flowing to groups that already have their own fundraising channels.
That’s not complicated. That’s just common sense. The money has a purpose. Stick to the purpose. Anything else is taking from the people who work for a living and giving it to causes they never voted to support.