City leaders talk ‘tough budget’ and big road work projects

TOPEKA (KSNT) – Two of Topeka’s biggest local officials talked about the latest issues and topics of the city Tuesday morning.

City Manager Robert Perez and Mayor Mike Padilla gave remarks and answered questions at 10 a.m. on Sept. 23 at the city’s Holliday building located at 620 SE Madison St. for their monthly press conference. The pair discussed topics related to the city budget, the Topeka Fire Department’s record-breaking fundraising efforts,

upcoming Topeka ice hockey games and the new Coffee with Code series.

Perez touched on the FY 2026 city budget during the press conference that was passed in last week’s city council meeting. Padilla applauded the efforts of city staff with finding more efficient ways to use money while also keeping city services funded.

“I will tell you it was a tough budget to go through a process, we did have a beginning funding deficit of about $17 million for FY 2026,” Perez said. “We actually… in order to to keep our mill levy at the same rate, which we did capture the revenue neutral the increment above that, but the tax rate stayed the same. We were able to achieve that through a number of reductions, a number of cuts.”

27 News asked Perez and Padilla about ongoing work on the Polk-Quincy Viaduct project in Topeka. Perez said workers with the Kansas Department of Transportation are doing additional “night work” to keep the construction schedule on pace for the massive undertaking.

“It’s appreciated that the public seems to have gotten very on board with the detours and inconveniences that are caused… because they know it’s necessary,” Padilla said. “It’s the only way you get some progress done in those projects.”

Padilla also said that work on the Branner Bridge in the Oakland area is expected to be completed by the end of September. Work on this project got started in June and was set to last for around three-and-a-half months.

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