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Topeka budget staff warn special street fund faces shortfall; options include general-fund subsidy or cutting services
Summary
City budget staff told the Policy and Finance Committee that Topeka’s special street (highway repair) fund is trending toward a negative balance in 2026 as revenues flatten and personnel and commodity costs rise; staff outlined revenue and spending options but the committee took no formal vote.
Carissa Miller, Topeka budget manager, told the Policy and Finance Committee on March 25 that the special street or highway repair fund — which pays for minor street reconstruction, maintenance, snow removal and sweeping — is projected to be over-encumbered by the end of 2026.
Miller said the fund’s revenues come primarily from the state and county motor fuel tax distribution, which has been essentially flat from 2022 through 2024. “2024, we got about 5,500,000.0,” she said, and noted that fund expenses rose from about $5.3 million in 2021 to about $6.9 million in 2024. She warned the committee that the adopted budget projects the fund will end 2024 and 2026 with a negative balance and that staff expect to need some subsidy or service reductions.
Why it matters: The special street fund pays for routine maintenance that affects daily safety and quality of life — pothole response, snow clearing and right-of-way cleanup — and a sustained shortfall would either raise costs elsewhere in the city budget or reduce those services.
In presenting causes, Miller pointed to three main trends: flat motor-fuel-tax distributions tied to reduced driving and a shift to hybrid/electric vehicles, rising commodity and personnel costs, and lower vacancy-driven savings that had previously masked costs. She outlined the fund’s cost mix: roughly 55% personnel, 26% contractual and 19% commodities (deicing materials, asphalt patching materials, PPE and repair equipment). She said the fund added a blight crew in 2024, replacing a contracted prisoner crew, and that vacancies dropped from an average of about 35% in 2022–23 to roughly 15% in 2024, increasing realized payroll costs.
Street-operations supervisor Tony (street department) told the committee that while staffing levels were currently adequate for winter operations, losing staff because of budget cuts would reduce the number of trucks and crews available for puddle patching, snow plowing and other routine tasks. “If we end up losing staff because of budget reasons, well, then it's fewer trucks on the road, lower response time,” he said, and added that cutbacks would also affect the blight crew’s trash cleanup and weed-eating work.
Staff presented three broad categories of options: 1) increase revenue for the fund (a direct general-fund subsidy, dedicating a mill, or routing part of a future sales-tax initiative to the fund); 2) move some expenses to the citywide half-cent sales-tax fund (which the city is planning to spend down by 2029); or 3) reduce services (fewer pothole repairs, longer snow-clear times, less right-of-way and blight cleanup).
Committee members pressed staff for detail. Councilmember Michelle Hofer asked whether the blight crew also handles small homeless encampment cleanups; Tony said the blight crew picks up trash and small camps on public right-of-way and that large abatements remain a street-department responsibility. Council members also asked for pothole and work-order metrics; Tony and staff said crews track time by work order and that staff plan to present updated service-request and pavement-condition numbers at the April 8 council meeting.
Staff flagged a possible partial revenue offset at the state level: an active bill would impose additional fees on hybrid and electric vehicles to recoup road-use revenues. Miller said city lobbyists are pushing for any fee to be routed back to the state highway fund and that the bill still had a chance of passage.
No formal committee action was taken on the fund at the March 25 meeting. Staff recommended the committee consider subsidies from the general fund or cost-sharing from the half-cent sales-tax fund and return with more detailed proposals and metrics during the budget process.
Ending: Staff will provide updated pothole and work-order metrics and a proposed list of specific transfers or subsidy options as the city’s 2026 budget process continues, with follow-up discussion scheduled during upcoming council budget briefings.
