As part of the reporting for an article about fees coming soon to the city’s rec centers, this publication filed an open record request weeks before the commission’s vote to approve the fees, seeking information about Sports Pavilion Lawrence’s revenue and expenses.
The City of Lawrence asked for $1,680 and 30 days to complete the request. City Clerk Sherri Riedemann said the records were housed in multiple systems and would take 48 staff hours to compile.
After asking for a way to lower the cost of the request, the city offered to provide financial data for the past two years at no charge. That information was supplied more than a month later.
But because of the city’s budgeting system, that data doesn’t account for revenue from all activities that take place at the facility, making accurate tracking of the financial status of SPL challenging.
The data provided showed that the facility was running deficits of approximately $925,000 and $1 million in 2023 and 2024, respectively, but those numbers didn’t include revenue from youth sports and other activities that are accounted for in other places.
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The city’s Sound Fiscal Stewardship commitment says: “We provide transparent, easy access to relevant, accurate data for budgeting and decision making.”
Holly Krebs, lead organizer for the Coalition for Collaborative Governance, said the group has had its own challenges seeking transparent financial information from the city. The advocacy group has done work investigating the city’s budget priorities.
She said the city does not consistently provide accessible financial data.
In one example, Krebs said the coalition was unable to find the city’s treasurer’s reports, which document revenue, investments, debt and more, and the city is legally required to publish. After asking the city for them, Krebs said, they were provided the most recent report, but not past years’.
“Our coalition has asked the city to clarify many details of their budget, and we have often had to ask the same question multiple times over weeks or months in order to receive an answer,” she said.
The city’s communications department did not respond to a request for comment on the open record request.
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Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
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