The City of Topeka responded Thursday to a court filing by the district attorney hinting at possible charges against city council members or city workers.

Hecht is seeking to question City Manager Norton Bonaparte and three city staff member about contracts for a new police helicopter and new software program. Hecht says he's investigating whether anyone violated the Kansas Cash Basis Law.

The city said last week that it found the contracts did not contain the specific language that law required.

In a statement Thursday, city spokesperson David Bevens says they are technical errors. He says the contract contains all the provisions the law requires, including disclosing all the financial information and allowing for termination if money is not appropriated.

He says city staff, not the city council, are responsible for the errors. He says, once the errors were realized, staff moved quickly to correct them and, in fact, will be presenting new documents to the City Counci for approval at their Tuesday meeting.

Bevens says no council members or employees knowingly violated the law.

Full statement from City of Topeka spokesperson David Bevens:

With all of the controversy and allegations being made regarding possible violations of the Kansas Cash Basis Law, Topeka City Manager Norton Bonaparte, Jr. would like to make it clear that it was City staff that prepared the documents for Council consideration, specifically the lease purchase contract documents with the Municipal Services Group (MSG).

The contract was used as the financial tool for the purchase of a helicopter and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

It was members of the City staff — not the City Council – who were responsible for preparing the original Lease Purchase Documents with MSG and are also responsible for preparing the corrected version of those documents that will go before the Topeka City Council for reauthorization next Tuesday night.

It was members of the City staff, upon finding the technical errors in the Lease Purchase Finance Documents approved by Council last year, moved as expeditiously as possible to inform the Council of the errors and the course of action needed. The Council acted appropriately in seeking to have it reauthorized, even given the severity of recent scrutiny by the Shawnee County District Attorney.

City staff takes full responsibility for the technical errors and they will present to the Council corrected Lease Purchase Finance Documents to address any possible deficiencies.

While the cash basis law says no municipality may spend money which it does not have on hand, it also provides exceptions. One of the exceptions allowed is for lease purchase agreements. If the municipality is going to enter into a lease purchase agreement that extends for more than a year, several conditions have to apply: 1) the governing body of a municipality, in this case, the City Council, has to approve it, 2) the lease purchase agreement must have a provision in it to allow for termination due to lack of non-appropriation in a following year, and 3) the lease purchase agreement must specifically disclose such things as the total amount financed, interest rate, insurance/other costs, etc.

“The bottom line is the lease purchase agreement contract the City Council approved last year has all of those elements,” said City Spokesman David Bevens. “It is when you drill down into the intricacies of the cash basis law, there are certain technical provisions that we are lacking in those agreements. To address those potential deficiencies, we have created a new set of documents and those are going before the City Council next Tuesday night.”

Bevens continued,

“In a nutshell we are not talking about the city being bankrupt, we are not talking about spending money the Council did not budget, and we are most certainly not talking about council members and employees knowingly violating the law.”