Declining enrollment will offset increased per-pupil state funding
The Lawrence school board on Monday set a maximum mill levy for the 2025-26 budget that will result in a property tax increase.
Board President GR Gordon-Ross said state formulas heavily influence the school district’s levying, while the other local taxing entities, the city and county, have more control over their processes.
“If we adopted the revenue neutral rate, we’d be choosing to collect less than the formula allows, which would directly reduce the dollars we receive per student without reducing our costs,” Gordon-Ross said. “So while we participate in the revenue neutral rate process, because state law requires it, it’s largely a formality for schools.”
Board members voted 6-0 to publish notices for two hearings on exceeding the revenue neutral rate and the maximum spending authority with the state. An opportunity for the community to comment on the budget items is required.
“The board would basically be acknowledging that, yes, even though we’re very close to the same mills, we know that we are raising more taxes than we did last year,” Cynde Frick, executive director of finance, said.
The mill levy for 2025-26 is set at 52.333. That’s .057 mills more than the 52.273 for 2024-25.
Although the rate increase is fairly small, most property owners in Lawrence and Douglas County saw their assessed valuations increase by 5% or 6% on average. To keep property taxes flat, the school board would have to lower the mill levy.
The owner of a home in the district’s boundaries assessed at $200,000 would’ve paid the district about $1,156 in property taxes for 2024-25. That amount would increase to about $1,168 this year with the mill levy change alone. However, if that home’s assessed valuation has also increased 5%, they’d pay about $1,218 for school district property taxes in 2026, or about $62 more.
Local option budgets allow districts to supplement funding through local property taxes or per-pupil state aid. The district will have authority to operate its LOB at around 33% of the general fund, which is the maximum allowed by the state.
But Frick said eventually, the state will likely not provide the district with any LOB state aid. She said the district received nearly $4 million in 2023-24 and $2.8 million in 2024-25, and it projects $729,000 in 2025-26.
The district’s assessed valuation per-pupil increased 5-6% in 2025-26, Frick said, because of increased property value and decreasing enrollment. The state determined the district’s AVPP is higher than others.
“The higher we get, the less money we receive,” Frick said. “We started to hear a little bit about that from KSDE (Kansas State Department of Education) last year — that we’re kind of getting into this situation — and certainly this year, that was the discussion.”
Base per pupil state aid for the general fund increased from $5,378 in 2024-25 to $5,615 in 2025-26. Frick said although the approximate 4% increase seems promising, declining enrollment means the district doesn’t reap the benefit.
“We are using a lower enrollment number than we had to last year, and so unfortunately, that offsets the increase that we would have gotten if enrollment had been stable or even growing,” Frick said.
The budget is due to the state by Sept. 20 — the day the district takes its annual enrollment count. A new state legislation change allows districts to use the higher of the current and previous years’ counts for the annual enrollment number, as opposed to using the previous year’s count. In 2024-25, the district was able to use the average of the two prior years.
The board can always approve a smaller budget, but they cannot exceed the maximum approved Monday.
Public hearings are scheduled for the start of the board’s meeting on Monday, Sept. 8. Later in that meaning, the board will consider approving the budget itself, Frick said.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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