Post last updated at 1:39 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1:
The City of Lawrence is seeking community members to serve on a budget committee whose meetings will not be open to the public, and “some confidentiality may be required during the process.”
The city announced the new Community Budget Committee in a news release Friday morning. Meetings will begin in December, and there will be about six meetings over eight months, according to the release. That’s through July 2025.
Participants will learn about the city budget and make recommendations to the city manager, but “This committee is not intended to set policy direction or reset priorities,” according to the release.
We asked why the meetings will not be open to the public.
“The Community Budget Committee will serve as a working group in the early stages of our budgeting process as we look to develop the 2026 City Manager’s Recommended Budget. Because it is a working group, it will not have the same structure as many of our other committees,” Alley Porter, budget and strategic initiatives manager, said in a statement through city spokespeople. “However, any findings/recommendations/etc. will be shared with the City Commission in a public forum and allow public participation at that time.”
In addition, Porter said the city will still host public “Balancing Act” sessions for the community, referring to the online program the city uses to allow residents to make some of their own recommendations about the budget.
“These will be scheduled once that tool is opened to the public,” she said. “Those meetings will be an opportunity for the community to ask questions and learn more about our general fund.”
For reference, this year, the city opened Balancing Act submissions throughout the month of May and through part of July. The draft budget was released July 5 and the first Lawrence City Commission meeting focused on the budget was on July 9.
People who are interested in joining the committee can apply between Friday. Nov. 1 and Friday, Nov. 15 at lawrenceks.org/budget/future/. City Manager Craig Owens will select committee members from the submitted applications, and the members will be announced on Monday, Nov. 25.
“The City looks forward to hosting a diverse group of community members in this committee,” according to the release.
During the latest budget process, city commissioners expressed a desire to dig deeper into changes that could be made to cut expenses. Owens and commissioners agreed in August that they will need to have longer-term conversations about sustainability of the budget in the future, and include the community in those conversations. That should start earlier in the budget process, they agreed.
“We need to create a process that lets us have those conversations, because that’s not how the budget conversations have gone in the time I’ve been here,” Owens said. “And so we put new tools in place, we’ve given new handles for the community to understand where their money is going and what programs are actually existing, and to help us, help communicate to us on those things, but we still get back to if anything is discussed about reduction of service, it is not met with conversation. And we’re just running out of money to do that.”
Larsen said she thinks the commission and the community should be part of a conversation about what programs and operations the city is maintaining and what, if anything, could be eliminated. “Do we want a golf course?” Vice Mayor Mike Dever asked, and “Do we want an airport?” Commissioner Lisa Larsen asked, both speaking hypothetically about potential conversations the city could have.
“We should not let any stone unturned,” Larsen said.
Owens said in Friday’s news release that “Our community is facing significant financial pressure, and some tough choices must be made for the 2026 budget. Our process is better when informed community members work together on solutions that account for what our fellow neighbors want and need. Collaboration and compromise will be necessary.”
The city is also starting a new Employee Budget Committee, according to the release. “City employees have been provided information on how to apply for the Employee Budget Committee if they are interested.”
Under state open meetings laws and following previous court rulings, the city can convene a committee like this without making it open to the public.
The Kansas Open Meetings Act (KSA 75-4318) includes that “boards, commissions, authorities, councils, committees, subcommittees and other subordinate groups thereof, receiving or expending and supported in whole or in part by public funds shall be open to the public.”
But court rulings have determined that some groups are not “subordinate,” and therefore are not subject to KOMA. That includes board that have no decision-making authority and those that weren’t created by government action.
The state attorney general’s office found in 2020, for instance, that a Shawnee Mission School District committee that reviewed implementation of a $50 million technology initiative did not have to open its meetings to the public, the Johnson County Post reported.
“Key to the decision was the district’s argument that the body was not created at the direction of the elected members of the Shawnee Mission Board of Education, and that the report the group ultimately issued made no ‘binding’ recommendations that the superintendent or school board would have been required to adopt,” the Post reported.
Most of the city’s advisory boards were created at the direction of the city commission, which means they are subject to open meetings laws. That extends to some other boards, such as those that oversee the Lawrence Community Shelter and Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.
Depending on the specifics, however, committees created by the city manager may be able to skirt KOMA.
“Unless the legislature takes action to amend the laws governing public oversight of so-called ‘subordinate groups,’ public agencies have apparent discretion to form such groups to facilitate private discussions about public business that would otherwise be required to be public,” said Max Kautsch, a Lawrence attorney and advocate for open government and freedom of information.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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