Lawrence police officers and supporters pleaded with city commissioners Tuesday not to consider cuts to the department’s budget, including cutting 10 positions and dropping to two school resources officers for the entire school district.
Eliminating police foot patrols downtown, closing the Indoor Aquatic Center during summer and paying for personnel out of funds set aside for affordable housing were three budget cut ideas among many that city staff members presented to the commission. (Read more about proposed cuts in the article at this link.)
City staffers previously estimated that operating the new fire station slated for Sixth Street and Stoneridge Drive, at about a $4.5 million annual cost to the city, would likely require a 3-mill property tax rate increase. Staff members’ presentation to the commission on Tuesday included the other potential budget cuts as well.
Commissioners heard from nearly three dozen people during public comment, and almost two-thirds of them spoke against proposed cuts to the police department budget.
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Sgt. Shelby Brouhard and others told commissioners that they haven’t seen police show up in large numbers before because officers are supposed to remain neutral, but police have stood on the sidelines as they’ve needed to keep doing more with less year after year.
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“I am the sergeant who has called a community member on more than one occasion and told them we would not be responding to their call because we don’t have the staffing,” she said. “… They called the police for help, and we could not be there for them.”
She referenced previous years’ budget discussions when commissioners opted to maintain staffing levels for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical so that fire trucks could be staffed with four people rather than three.
“I am asking you to send the leader of my family and the father of my children into a fire on a three-man truck,” Brouhard said. “I am asking you, for once, to require LDCFM to do more with less.”
Lt. Amy Rhoads told commissioners that if they continued with the cuts, they’d not just be balancing a budget but redefining public safety in Lawrence.
“Before making those decisions, I urge you to fully examine all options, including adjustments to existing fire staffing models, so the burden is not placed disproportionately on one side of public safety,” she said.
Another potential cut would eliminate the department’s community service technician program. LPD Detective Evan Curtis told commissioners the department’s CSTs and SROs covered about 5,000 calls for service in a year, which otherwise would’ve fallen to “an already taxed and thin patrol.”
School Resource Officer Dan Affalter told commissioners that after previous budget cuts, he’s gone from covering three schools to seven.
Affalter said it would be really hard to explain to a family that their child isn’t coming home because “Sorry, we had to cut the budget. We couldn’t have made it work. … We decided to cut the budget from the police because safety isn’t as important to us.”
Others emphasized that the first responders all depend on each other, and they told commissioners that the city shouldn’t be making cuts to any public safety positions.
Some community members said they were concerned about city staff wages increasing at unsustainable rates, including some of the city’s top-paid personnel receiving raises of 6% to 13% or more in recent years.
Some said the city didn’t need to either make multimillion-dollar budget cuts or implement large property tax increases for 2027 because the new fire station wouldn’t be functional until 2028.
Others spoke against some of the other potential cuts city staff members had proposed.
Jacqui Folks, with Douglas County Special Olympics, told commissioners that closing the Indoor Aquatic Center during the summer would take away an entire season from “103 disabled, amazing human beings in your community.”
“We have to have the zero-depth entry. We have sensory issues that we deal with, with the sun and the heat and the noise, and we just can’t go somewhere else,” Folks said. “They get so much from this one activity.”
Mariel Ferreiro, a member of the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board, asked commissioners not to cut homelessness services or to use money from the city’s affordable housing trust fund to pay for personnel.
“Taking taxpayer dollars and moving that to personnel costs would not only decrease the ability for us to provide more affordable housing units, but would also slow our ability to meet the goals of the A Place for Everyone (strategic plan to address homelessness),” she said. “Reducing costs in the homelessness space would also jeopardize the work that we have been striving to do for not just since A Place for Everyone was created, but for decades.”
City commissioners’ direction
City staff members had a number of questions they wanted city commissioners to answer Tuesday, including whether they’re committed to the city’s current pay structure, whether they support a mill levy increase to support operations of Fire Station 6, and whether they want to put a Lawrence Transit sales tax increase on city voters’ November ballots.
Vice Mayor Mike Courtney said he needs to see a wage study report, which is supposed to come in later this month or in June, to determine whether he wants to stick with the city’s current pay structure.
Commissioner Amber Sellers said it becomes a bit dehumanizing and demoralizing for public servants who are trying to do more with less to hear legislators “essentially legislate away your cost of living.” She agreed that commissioners need to have that conversation after they receive the study.
Commissioner Mike Dever said he wanted to consider whatever means necessary to move forward with the fire protection the commission had already agreed to fund.
“And also recognizing the deficit we’re putting our police department in, and recognizing that they themselves see the quality of their product as diminishing,” Dever said. “And if we don’t publicly face that, then we’re not doing our jobs.”
Lawrence Transit currently receives funding from a 0.2% sales tax, and city staff members want to ask voters to increase it to 0.3%.
Commissioners generally agreed Tuesday that they want to move forward to put the question on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. They’ll have until Sept. 1 to approve the final language for that ballot question.
Dever questioned whether reimplementing fares for Lawrence Transit might “change some of the behavior that is impacting public safety and our ability to get around town, to face some of the issues we’re having with transients.”
“The bus is a is a conduit for our community, no matter who you are, but we need to make sure that the fact we’re not charging a fee isn’t having an impact on the quality of service and and the view of the transit service for our community,” Dever said.
Commissioner Kristine Polian said she wasn’t sure she could commit to a mill levy increase to operate Fire Station 6, but she was committed to Station 6. She also said she was in favor of getting the Lawrence Transit sales tax increase on voters’ ballots.
Mayor Brad Finkeldei said he knows the city wants to look at cuts, but it was important for the commission to give direction.
“If we continue just to say ‘Cut somewhere — we don’t know where yet, but cut somewhere,’ we’re going to force our staff to go to their departments and talk about things like cutting SROs or closing down the pool,” Finkeldei said. “And maybe those are great conversations we should continue to have, but I have no desire to do any of those things. I mean, I’m not going to vote to do any of those things.”
He said that as a commission, they should tell staff members whether they’re interested in continuing certain conversations or not.
Commissioners agreed they wanted to get further information and data from city staff and have numerous additional conversations about the budget going forward.
They will continue budget discussions throughout the next few months, with a final vote set for their Sept. 15 meeting.
Note: A misspelled name in this post has been corrected.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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