Following some confusion, Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday approved their maximum budget for 2025.
From this point forward, commissioners can decrease spending before they lock in the budget by Oct. 1, but they cannot exceed the rate they approved Tuesday.
They voted 3-2 to set the maximum mill levy — or property tax rate — at 36.807, which is an increase of 3.6 mills over the current rate of 33.207.
That means the owner of a home with a value of $247,300 – the median value for Lawrence in 2022 — would pay about $103 more to the city in property taxes next year, or $1,047 up from $944.
Commissioners during their meeting last week agreed for purposes of further budget discussion that they would ask city staff members to come back with options including up to a 5.7-mill increase, which would have raised the property tax rate to 38.907 mills.
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A large part of the reason for that was because they largely agreed that they wanted to fund Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical staffing at the same levels they have in the past, in addition to paying to build two new fire stations to better serve an expanding city. Dozens of people came to the meeting last week to speak against any cuts to fire-medical staffing.
Commissioners in recent years have approved annexation and rezoning requests to expand the city to the south, northwest and north of current city limits, and firefighter-medics have stressed that the city’s expanding boundaries and increased call volumes are straining their resources and slowing their response times.
City administrators had proposed a staffing reduction to staff each fire apparatus with three employees rather than the current four, which firefighters have said is against National Fire Protection Association standards. The proposed budget included a mill levy increase of 3.5 mills to offset the cost of the new fire stations.
Commissioner Amber Sellers argued that the commission could always lower the budget from the maximum they approved Tuesday, but they can’t go up. She pushed to set the higher mill levy to include funding for both LDCFM staffing and two stations.
“I don’t feel great about sending out a really high mill levy to the public if it’s not something we would consider,” Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said, though he agreed he liked the flexibility of a higher number as commissioners continue to work through the budget in August.
Mayor Bart Littlejohn, too, said he would like to go with a 5.7-mill increase to start, to give the commission flexibility going forward.
“I’m of the mind to keep it at 38, because that allows us to look at it holistically, instead of putting ourselves in a predicament where the decisions are going to be more strenuous than they necessarily have to be,” Sellers said.
Commissioner Lisa Larsen, however, said she would not support a 5-mill increase.
“I just think we need to look harder at this budget,” Larsen said. “… Yeah, there’s gonna have to be cuts made, and we’ll have to decide what those are. But I just don’t believe the community is with this.”
Vice Mayor Mike Dever said he would not support a mill levy increase.
“If not now, when are we going to stop asking for more money?” Dever said. “Because if we can’t manage the budget that we have right now with the money we have, I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen when the economy changes, and decreases in property value or lack of increases occur like they have in the past, or when sales tax drop because people can’t afford to live here anymore.”
Ultimately, Littlejohn, Sellers and Finkeldei — looking for consensus — voted to approve a 3.6-mill increase for the maximum budget. Dever and Larsen opposed.
The proposed budget also suggests asking voters to approve a sales tax increase to continue funding homelessness services at approximately the same amounts as this year. Commissioners have not discussed that much during the past two meetings since the proposal was released.
Public hearings on the budget and property tax rate are set for 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 20 at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. The budget will not be finalized until Oct. 1.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
