BY: TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation proposed construction of a $114.4 million headquarters to replace administrative buildings that subjected employees to fire-safety dangers and security threats from homeless people and drug addicts.
Tony Mattivi, director of the state law enforcement agency, told the Kansas Legislature’s joint budget committee Monday the headquarters located in a former Topeka junior high school was declared functionally obsolete in 1996. That main structure was built in 1929 a decade before the KBI was created.
Consultants concluded the two adjoining buildings making up the headquarters complex couldn’t continue to accommodate a functioning workplace, Mattivi said.
“Our headquarters isn’t safe,” the KBI director said. “I am failing miserably in my obligation to give our employees a safe place to work.”
Mattivi said the stone structure serving as the central administrative building wasn’t equipped with life-safety systems such as smoke-containment and fire-sprinkler systems. The largely wood-framed building lacked internal barriers to prevent spread of flames.
It isn’t compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. There are numerous code issues due to antiquated infrastructure, he said. Portions of the sewer pipe system, for example, were about 100 years old.
Mattivi said the headquarters didn’t have a command post to coordinate law enforcement emergencies. Nor did it have dedicated classroom space, an indoor firing range, an evidence processing room, kennel facilities for K-9s, an incinerator or agent equipment lockers, he said.
The headquarters didn’t meet external security standards because it lacked fencing and didn’t have enough property for a stand-off perimeter, Mattivi said. An alley runs between the two KBI buildings. Some of the agency’s 250 employees must walk through that alley from building to building.
“I don’t mean to be unkind to anyone, but we’re in a horrible neighborhood,” Mattivi said. “Employees walk between two buildings through an alley and are often confronted by homeless people and drug addicts, because that’s what surrounds the KBI building.”
Mattivi said consultants and state officials considered renovation of the existing buildings, relocating to vacant office space and building a new headquarters. The best option is to build a headquarters with 134,000 square feet on seven to nine acres in Topeka, the KBI director said.
Rep. Will Carpenter, an El Dorado Republican on the legislative budget committee, said the KBI should forward to the 2025 Legislature estimates of what it would cost to renovate the existing administrative facility.
“I think if we’re going to look at that we need to look at the whole picture,” Carpenter said.
The Legislature should explore alternatives such as acquiring empty office space for use by the KBI, said Republican Rep. Kyle Hoffman of Coldwater.
Mattivi said the $114.4 million estimate for construction of a new headquarters reflected an updated plan for square footage and construction costs. An earlier proposal placed the preliminary cost at less than $95 million. Neither estimate included the cost of land acquisition.
The KBI started the process of assessing land in the Topeka area for a new headquarters in anticipation of competitive bidding for land and construction, Mattivi said.
Mattivi also urged the Legislature to approve $1.6 million for cybersecurity upgrades at the KBI.
“The information we have is so sensitive that a data breach would be disastrous,” the director said.
The KBI proposed the state allocate $1.2 million for specialized equipment at the KBI’s main laboratory in Topeka. In addition, the agency recommended an appropriation of $500,000 to address shortcomings in a computer system used to track offenders and $239,000 to improve recruitment and retention of KBI staff, especially information technology professionals.
Meanwhile, the KBI has proceeded with development of planning for a $55 million agency laboratory on the campus of Pittsburg State University. The land was donated by PSU and the Legislature approved $40 million for the project. The remaining funding would come from the federal government.
Ground is expected to be broken on that southeast Kansas laboratory in June 2025 or about six months later than previously anticipated. The laboratory could be occupied by December 2026, Mattivi said.