Douglas County crews would mow the grass.

Lawrence’s city crews would take care of the playground equipment.

And management of Broken Arrow Park finally would be shared between its two government owners, instead of being split down the middle like the road that divides the city and county plots at the northeast corner of 31st and Louisiana streets.

“It seems like a pretty even swap, because everybody can specialize in what they do,” City Manager Mike Wildgen said. “They don’t have to stop mowing because one side is in the city, and we can go ahead and fix a brace on some equipment if it’s on the county side.

“It seems logical to try to work together.”

The agreement to combine maintenance responsibilities at the park likely to be ready for approval next week by city and county commissioners could become the first step in a journey toward even more parks cooperation between the two governments.

During their meeting Monday morning, County Commissioner Charles Jones floated the idea of turning over maintenance and operations of all county parks except the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds to Lawrence Parks & Recreation. Jones specifically mentioned Lone Star Lake, a rejuvenated Wells Overlook Park and smaller sites elsewhere.

The reason for courting city resources is simple, Jones said: The county doesn’t even maintain a separate line item in its annual budget for parks maintenance, leaving that responsibility to Keith Browning, who as public works director handles the already imposing task of maintaining and building county roads.

The city’s parks and recreation staff, meanwhile, has 75 full-timers and 450 part-timers working on 50 park sites that cover 3,300 acres. The annual operating budget is $7.4 million.

“I just think there’s some economies of scale and some better services we could offer,” Jones said.

His fellow commissioners welcomed the concept.

“It’s a good step in the right direction,” said Jere McElhaney, the commission’s chairman.

Added Bob Johnson, a longtime supporter of government consolidation: “We ought to be talking about such things.”

Fred DeVictor, the city’s director of parks and recreation, said he’d welcome the conversation. But Wildgen cautioned that the city simply couldn’t agree to take on mowing, cleaning and programming responsibilities for county sites without receiving county compensation.

“I’m sure we could do it, but we would need appropriate financial resources to do that,” he said.

County commissioners did not set a deadline for the discussion. Lawrence city commissioners are expected to consider the agreement for Broken Arrow Park during their meeting at 6:35 p.m. May 7 at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.