City Manager Dave Corliss proposed his 2008 budget for City Hall on Friday. It includes a 1-mill property tax increase, and a hike in pool fees to $4 a visit, while preserving the T from any budget cuts. He’ll take your questions.

erod0723

Why has your office decided that budget cuts are necessary, but yet your office has recently hired more staff?

smgkag

Are you intending to make the pool pay for itself or be a revenue generator for the T? If the latter, why should the pool patrons pay for the T?

smgkag

If the pool increase passes, what about a family pass? It would be $16 for my family to go the pool once. In light of the proposed mill tax, that seems excessive.

merrill

I can accept the need to fund public schools as that is a top item for employers if we want to attract high paying light industrial.

I can accept maintaining the older infrastructure such as streets and sidewalks for that also sends a positive message about Lawrence and I believe it is good for business. Hopefully wider eastside sidewalks on say 6th,9th,13th,15th and 19th could be a possibility.

With 72% of T ridership associated with employment,medical and education support for that makes sense.

When spending tax dollars and speaking of economic growth what exactly are we talking about? Who is searching for economic development and if so what? Would you and the other powers that be consider a new financially strong light industry labeled “Green Collar” which is a combination of all collar colors?

I think most taxpayers would like to be kept informed with some detail about how these economic growth dollars are being spent.

Thank you in advance for taking the time

soiledbrown

how much money, if any will be budgeted for “consultants”, and was the $250,000 spent last year in the budget?
thanks

WilburM

Please tell me that the doubling of pool fees was just an unfortunate trial baloon and that you and the commission will take this off the table right away. It’s bad for kids, for their families, for city law enforcement, and it makes the commission look foolish and heartless. Is that what you desire, honestly?

meburr

Over the last serveral years with the rise in interest rates, the city has benefited from an increased investment interest income. Where does that money go? There should be substantial interest income. Is is being used for any of the budget shortfall?

bstone

What do you think about moving from taxing the value of structures to taxing the value of the land? For example, a vacant lot in the middle of the city would be taxed the same amount as a hotel on the lot next door. This would both eliminate land speculation and encourage growth. The false scarcity of land created by the speculator disappears as he is forced to either sell or build to make a profit. Meanwhile, the hotel is free to make additions and upgrades to the structure without any penalty of taxes. Hence growth, which is contrary to the decay our current system promotes.

The motivation behind this idea is that the value of land is derived from city amenities, i.e. roads, sewer lines, libraries, pools, parks, etc. When land is not taxed, the owner of a vacant lot sits on his property while the community builds around it and increases his lot’s value. As he has not built anything, his taxes have not increased in proportion with the increasing amenities surrounding him. In a sense, the speculator is stealing from the community.

This idea was made popular by Henry George and is normally called Land Value Taxation (LVT). Other communities have implemented this Land Tax system and have seen good results. Could Lawrence benefit from this system? Why or why not?

Dayna38

With all due respect for your work to “make a dollar out of 15 cents”, do you think any of your ideas are obviously not gonna happen?

KsTwister

Why is the Lawrence budget subject to what I consider private business operations in regard to the Eagle Bend Golf course, The “T”, and buying polluted Farmland property? Should not taxpayer’s dollars go to providing city services like streets, sidewalks, sewers, waste management, the levy maintenance and water? Fiscal responsibility says these items cost enough without adding extras.

gladiator72

Good afternoon,

In this year’s round of allocations from the Outside Funding budget, 25 agencies applied. Of these 25, one, the Leo Center, which offers health care and financial counseling options to low-income individuals and families, received nothing while the other 24 received almost everything they asked for.

I would be interested in your comments regarding the decision to leave this kind of community resource out.

Thanks.

Regards,
Stephen

dotherightthing

If adding a full-time position would help with overtime costs for some departments, do you think the city should?

shoffner

Why are we raising fees on the pool that plenty of children (without jobs) use for fun and bordem relief and not raising fees on the T, which plenty of people do not use, including myself because terrible routing means I can ride my bike as fast or faster than the T can get me there, and those that do use it are the adults getting to/from work (getting paid)?

smgkag

If we are essentially more than doubling the fee for children to swim, I think we should more than double fees for the T and for Eagle Bend.

je

How come the allocation for the Chamber of Commerce is going up, while other economic development allocations are going down?

sunshine_noise

Comment: If the pool fee goes up I’ll just drive the couple of miles out to Eudora and swim in their new pool. Right now it is $50 cent cheaper if you have a child under 12. If they raise our pool to $4.00 just think how much more we can save. I’m beginning to NOW believe it is becoming too expensive to live in Lawrence.

hawkperchedatriverfront

The East Hills business park you say was purchased by a government entity, i.e. the county. Who are the participants in this public/ private partnership with East Hills?

How would the Lawrence taxpayers benefit if the city i.e. the taxpayers bought Farmland. So far we have not seen a return on the investment of $750.000. Was it a “gift” just as the city money would be a “gift”?

kansasmom

Don’t you think that $4 entrance fee for children is very steep for the pool? I don’t live below poverty so we do not qualify for free passes, but it’s sad to not be able to afford to take your children swimming more than a couple times a month especially when you have multiple children. I think you should take out the free passes and offer an affordable rate for all patrons, otherwise you are just going to have “free” patrons at your pool and non of the paying patrons. $4 is WAY TOO MUCH!

lawrencian

With all the discussions about an ’empty’ bus system, what is your view on continuing to support the “T”?

calamityjane

I would like to know why the other clinic for low income individuals in town, Heartland Medical, part of the Leo Center, was left out of the budget. They serve a different population of needy in town and deserve support as well. Please answer.

calamityjane

Thanks for answering 🙂

merrill

Hey Chad,

Would you please forward my email to Dave Corliss.

Thanks

Moderator

Hi. I’m Journal-World reporter Chad Lawhorn. I’ll be the moderator for the chat. We have City Manager David Corliss with us to talk about his 2008 recommended city budget. Thanks for being here, David. We have several questions. We’ll try to get through as many as possible.

Dave Corliss

Thanks for the invitation; let’s go. Dave

dbrm4ever2006

With your proposed rate increase at the pool, how do you expect people living below the poverty line to let their kids go swimming?

Dave Corliss

The recommended budget does include a proposal to increase pool fees. We will either need to increase fees, reduce hours, or increase property tax support for our recreation fund. The City currently provides several thousand dollar annual support for free pool passes which are used by a number of individuals in our community. We also will continue to sell monthly pool passes which will be at a discounted rate.

blackwalnut

Why is the city competing with private bidders to buy the polluted Farmland Ind. site, and what will be the process for choosing a firm to clean it up once the city owns it?

Dave Corliss

The City believes that it can acquire the former Farmland site and access the trust funds that have been set aside for environmental clean-up and administrative duties for the property. We believe that we will greater control over the property with ownership versus if a private environemental company acquires the property and then seeks to re-sell the property. We continue to believe that we need to expand our industrial sites, and the former Farmland site is a logical extension of the East Hills business park. The East Hills business park was originally purchased by a government entity (Douglas County) and was developed with City special assessment financial assistance. We think this is a successful model to follow for the Farmland property, with the additional element that we can acquire the property and use the trust funds to clean-up and administer the property.

cowboy

You publicly stated that the budgets needed to be cut , how can you now suggest tax hikes after the city staff failed to produce the required cuts ?

samsnewplace

Mr. Corliss, why does the City rent art to display, pay to insure this art when we have so many talented local artists that would probably display throughout the City for free? This seems like a huge waste of tax payers money and not a very good use of our own very talented artists here within the City.

Dave Corliss

Cowboy, thanks for the quesiton. We have made substantial cuts – if you read the recommended budget (go to www.lawrenceks.org) you will note that we have cut approximately $3 million from the 2007 budget, completely removed 3 full time positions, and we have reduced by $2 million what the department directors requested for 2008. We will have fewer general fund positions in 2008 than we did in 2007. The recommended budget provides options for the City Commission to consider: including options which do not increase the mill levy. I’m recommending that we increase the mill levy to provide City employees with a 2% wage adjustment and that we increase the mill levy to keep the transit system at current service levels (this is required because we cut the transit mill levy before the 2007 budget). The total mill levy increase is at about 1.0 mill. Our mill levy will still be less than the school district and Douglas County. We are still looking for ways to reduce budgets and expenditures. However, our costs are increasing and there is not a strong consensus on what City services must be cut. I specifically ask the Commission in my transmittal letter which service or City function we should say “no” to.

Moderator

Sorry about that folks. We got out of order there. The question that David will be responding to next is from samsnewplace.

Dave Corliss

Thank for the question. I disagree that spending public tax dollars on public art is a waste of money. The Lawrence Arts Commission receives City tax dollars to sponsor the downtown sculpture exhibition and a number of other worthy programs. They receive approximately $23,000 per year from the City. We constantly receive compliments about the value of public art, including our downtown sculpure exhibition. I agree that we have a number of talented artists in our community – and talented artists should be compensated for their work. The City’s budget has a focus on essential, City services: police, fire, street maintenance. That is where the vast bulk of tax dollars should go and do go. But we also want to live and work in a remarkable community, so the City has supported limited expenditures on public art that enhances our community and provides some support for Lawrence as a community which supports the arts.

plumberscrack

Since the city is in a budget crisis, how can you justify having two assistant city managers? Seems to me, this is a position you can do without and cut some fat out of the budget without hurting anyone, since you have already laid off two other city employees. And when is the review of dept heads “from top to bottom” going to be done, as you stated when you took over the job as city manager?

Dave Corliss

Thanks for the question. The City has had two assistant city manager positions since 2000, so that is not a new position. The review of the City organization is never completed, it is constantly occurring. I’ll give examples: We have merged the Neighborhood Resources Department with the Planning Department to help with the coordination on our development process. We are budgeting the Human Relations Department function (enforcing the City’s civil rights laws) under our legal department for the 2008 budget and still conducting a review about how best to align that function with our organizational chart. We have moved all the responsibilities for sanitary sewer design and construction inspection from the Public Works department to the Utilities department. We have also made a number of changes in the Utilities Department, specifically focusing on maintenance and engineering services. There are a number of initiatives to improve the City organization which are underway – there will always be change. Judge us by our results and read the recent survey of City residents. We have a number of areas to improve, but we also receive high marks on our level of service. These are comments which reflect a scientific sampling of Lawrence citizens versus following the “wisdom comes from the lungs” approach of anonymous bloggers.

booze_buds_03

I was wondering what type of accountability will be placed on the Chamber of Commerce with all the handouts they have been given. Maybe you could give some insight as to what they are doing with the money we have given them and some hard facts as to what kinds of businesses and the number of jobs they have actually brought to the community.

Dave Corliss

Thanks for the question. The Chamber of Commerce provides periodic reports to the City Commission on their activities – we conducted a study session with Douglas County officials and Chamber representativies a couple of weeks back on their recruitement and retention activities. Those reports provide data on the number of inquiries from businesses, job growth, etc. which are used to evaluate their activities.

calamityjane

The Leo Center, which serves Lawrence needy with emergency rent and utilities, a food pantry and Heartland Medical Clinic, received no recommendation for assistance at all in 2008.

While I understand (somewhat) not raising the assistance of other agencies, isn’t it true that they serve the needy in Lawrence, and that being said, why shouldn’t the city support this social agency with funds the way it’s supporting others? Couldn’t some support have been allotted to this agency serving town since 1999, versus an all out zero?

Moderator

Thanks, David. That’s all the time we have. Thank you all for your questions.

Dave Corliss

Thanks for your question. I agree that the Leo Center provides a valuable service to the community. The recommended budget does not include any support for new non-City agencies. The recommended budget does provide support for a number of agencies that have received support in the past, a partial list includes: Warm Hearts ($6,000); Salvation Army ($30,000); the total for homeless services in the general fund amounts to $187,000; Health Care Access ($28,000); Ballard Center ($7,500). These amounts either reflect their requests for 2008 or their actual budgeted amounts (prior to the 4% reduction) for 2007. Budgets involve choices, and giving our resource limitations the recommended budget does not include new social service initiatives.

Dave Corliss

Chad, thanks for the invitation. I’d be glad to respond to anyone – even if they want to be anonymous – who didn’t get their questions/comments responded to today. Just send me an email at dcorliss@ci.lawrence.ks.us. Thanks, Dave