Topeka officials ponder sales tax

Topekans are "taxed out," Clark Trammell told city elected officials last month.

The longtime businessman, who ran unsuccessfully last year for mayor, questioned whether Topeka voters would support extending and increasing a citywide, half-cent sales tax.

Trammell spoke April 10 to the city's governing body as it pondered various issues regarding the potential extension and increase of a citywide, half-cent sales tax used to pay cash for specific types of projects.

That body, consisting of the nine council members and Mayor Michelle De La Isla, will hear public comments at a town hall meeting being held Tuesday to share information and seek input regarding that tax. The gathering will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Law Enforcement Center, 320 S. Kansas Ave.

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Deputy Mayor and Councilman Brendan Jensen encouraged anyone with questions they wish to see addressed that evening to email the council.

The meeting comes at a time when the governing body has been discussing scheduling a citywide Nov. 6 ballot question election on whether to extend and perhaps increase the tax.

Topekans voted, 57% to 43%, in April 2009 to approve the 10-year tax, for which the ballot question said revenue may be used only to cover costs of maintenance and improvements of existing streets, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, alleys and street lighting.

The city on Oct., 1, 2009, began levying the tax. It expires Oct. 1, 2019.

The citywide tax is separate from a countywide, half-cent sales tax used to finance economic development and specific infrastructure improvements, both inside and outside Topeka city limits. County residents in 2014 voted, 65% to 35%, to extend that tax until Dec. 31, 2031.

Fifty-two percent of the $24.4 million the city spends annually on its pavement management program comes from the citywide half-cent sales tax, public works director Jason Peek told governing body members Feb. 13.

Otherwise, he said, 30% of city pavement management program is financed using revenue from a countywide, half-cent sales tax; 6 percent from general obligation bonds; 5% from the city's general fund; 4% from state and federal funding; and 3% from motor fuel tax revenue.

Longtime local businessman Jim Parrish told the governing body Feb. 13 he felt comfortable that voters would generally feel positively about extending the current tax. He stressed that visitors to this community pay nearly 30% of that tax.

Still, Parrish urged the council to make sure voters are able to easily understand any ballot question.

The governing body subsequently took no action April 10 after it talked about scheduling a Nov. 6 ballot on whether to extend the sales tax another 10 years while increasing it from one-half cent to three-quarters of a cent.

City manager Brent Trout said that day that if a proposal to schedule the ballot election failed this year, the city could try again by holding a special election or by putting the question on the ballot either for the August 2019 primary election or the November 2019 general election. The November 2019 election would take place after the current tax expires.

The governing body heard April 10 from Trammell and longtime Topeka resident Marge Ahrens, who has been active with the League of Women Voters but was speaking for herself.

Ahrens said this community has a "vast number" of disadvantaged residents whose health, safety, housing and survival are directly affected by sales taxes. She asked that the city government not add to the burden its sales taxes place on the poor.

Questions the governing body wants to resolve as it moves forward include whether to schedule the election; whether to arrange for it to take place Nov. 6; and whether to ask voters to increase the tax to three-quarters of a cent.

Governing body members are also pondering to whether the ballot question should finance all the same types of projects the current tax does, or if that list should be longer or shorter.

Peek said those options include expanding the scope of the tax by enabling its revenue to be used to widen streets, or allowing for the revenue to be used to pay to provide "all associated infrastructure within the public right of way necessary for completion of the improvements identified."

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