Remarks by Spencer Duncan
308 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 13
Good evening. Welcome to the October 20th, 2026 meeting of the Topeka Governing Body. I will now call this meeting to order. This evening, Council Member Ortiz has the invocation. Please give her your attention and stand if you are able.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Shanae. Only you'll understand this, Shanae, real quick. My grandfather went to Florida. One of my aunts went to Florida State, so we had that turmoil for a while in my household. Yes, house divided. Everyone still loves each other.
All right. And anyone else you want to bring up? Maybe nobody, but if there is anybody.
This is not the reason I'm doing this. Everyone gets to submit these and then we do them, but I will say I have a little bit of a connection. Oh, no, you have to come stand behind me and be seen and on camera and everything. But I have been a member of Rotary for a while now. I was two-time president of one club, which is no longer with us, courtesy of COVID. But now I am a member of one of the Rotary groups here in Topeka. So I do appreciate all the work they do and what we're about to discuss here this evening. Whereas Rotary International in 1985 launched Polio Plus and spearheaded the…
All right. With that, we move on to presentations. City Clerk.
To that point, though, somewhere maybe in your inbox, I'm sure he'd be happy to resend it. Council Member McGee did do some follow-up with Department of Revenue, and it's not perfect, but it does do a little bit of breakdown, at least at the state level of somewhere their collections have been coming from. So it's not Topeka-specific, but it gives sort of a very – overview of kind of where the state's at in some of those collections. So if you can't dig that out of your inbox, I'm sure he would be happy to send it to you again. I won't speak for him, but he's not even said yes.
So to that end, Alton, as we look then at, I mean, let's say that even it's an awesome Christmas and we somehow get there and we can all hope or whatever the economy. But regardless, are we going to then start as we look at the 28 budget? Because we're using, what, 3%? 3%? 3.5%? What are we using as our baseline?
So, I mean, are we going to take a look at just adjusting that and see what that looks like if we used, I don't know, a number 2 or 2.5% just to hedge our bet for the 28 budget?
Maybe just use whatever we end this year at and you can see where that percentage is and use it. Okay. Yes, sir. My second question is, so there will be... assuming it'll knock on something at the end of the year, $3 million savings in our reserve fund. That means that what we projected for next year's reserve fund balance is going to be readjusted so that percentage will change slightly, right? That magic 15% we all like to, one, Duncan here likes to complain, but I mean, will we then be able to look at those funds again as we look at the 28 budget for carryover maybe as to how we could…
Okay, perfect. Any other questions or comments from the governing body on this issue?
All right. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none. Thank you, Dalton. We will now move on to the consent agenda. City Clerk.
All right. We have a motion to approve from Councilmember Kell and a second from Councilmember Miller. Clerk, would you take the vote, please?
All right. We get to move on to action items. Action item A, city clerk.
All right, so a few things just to Make sure we're all on the same page. So a couple points, and it makes total sense why the city manager talked about the auditor and the sales tax now during one presentation. But our item A is the first discussion will be focused just on the movement forward or not for a March ballot initiative on the 10th of a cent sales tax for the housing and homelessness piece. I believe this governing body was pretty clear, as the city manager said, that anything else at this point besides the auditor piece, which we'll talk about later, is not something we're…
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Thank you. All right. Now we will turn our attention to the City Council. Council Member Kell.
So I want to clarify, your motion is to move forward the proposed question to a March mail-in ballot?
Okay, just want to make sure we all know what has been the, what you've motioned, and there is a second on that from Councilmember Miller, who is now also up to speak. Councilmember Miller.
Deputy Mayor Hofer. I still have some issues with this.
I guess that's up to the council, or I guess that's up to the maker of the motion. I would say the question also does say, but not limited to, for that exact purpose, to try to not make it such a large list of things that gets a little too...
The original number was $118,000. The new number is $155,000. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I've got a few. So, you know, what's complicated this whole discussion, whether it's this sales tax or the other, is the legislature did none of us a favor two years ago when they limited the number of times, even if we're willing to pay for it, that a municipality could send any sort of question out to its public. It used to be you could kind of do it whenever you felt it was necessary, and so on issues like this, on issues like bonds, It's been limiting, and it's been discouraging for…
Any other comments or questions for staff on this issue? If not, we have a motion on the floor to, just to clarify, the motion is to move this question as written and proposed to a March ballot. With that, I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please.
We will now move on to action item B. City Clerk.
Yeah, I'll just add to that, that as we had this discussion and the creation of this position, which we budgeted for, we might have to make an amendment to that, but we can move forward with that posting next year and hope that this, even if this charter doesn't get changed immediately, we can still bring that person in and sort of still work with them to start their job. This is not uncommon of the cities that have this in Kansas, that it is independent of their internal staff that they do report either at the direction of a committee of the governing body and then the governing body as a…
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.