Audit in county designed to find budget savings

State grasps for cost-cutting ideas

Auditors searching for ways to help the state save money through government consolidation and cooperation are training their sights on Douglas County.

The move comes as officials statewide wrestle with a dwindling budget and weakening revenues.

“Any time government can do things more efficiently, more effectively, it’s a good time to talk about it,” said Joe Lawhon, principal auditor for the Legislative Division of Post Audit.

Lawhon is leading a team of auditors charged with “drilling deep” into the budgets, operations and structures of the county’s 31 taxing units — from cemetery boards to drainage districts to the Douglas County Commission — at the request of Senate President Sen. Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson.

The division’s audit, which also includes a review of governments in Dickinson County, is designed to locate opportunities for and identify barriers to cooperation or consolidation.

Russ Prothe, a Douglas County Fire & Medical firefighter, unpacks his gear Tuesday at Station No. 1, 746 Ky. Lawrence Fire Department and Douglas County Ambulance Service merged in 1997 to become the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical. Now, state auditors are looking at streamlining the county's 31 branches of local government.

The audit’s recommendations could lead to a vision for the entire state. With nearly 4,000 taxing authorities, Kansas ranks behind only California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas in the total number of governmental units.

And at least one prominent legislator is leading the charge to get smaller, faster.

“I certainly am a believer that we have more local governments than we can afford,” Kerr said. “We need to provide every opportunity for modernization and streamlining in order to do the work that needs to be done more efficiently.”

Mike Wildgen, Lawrence city manager, long has hoped for such sentiments to sweep through the Legislature. Just last year, he said, state restrictions on government investments cost the city a potential $600,000.

Lifting administrative, regulatory and other barriers to municipal operations could open the door to successful partnerships, he said. Previous examples include consolidation of the Lawrence Fire Department and Douglas County Ambulance Service; combining the Manhattan Police Department and Riley County Sheriff’s Office; and uniting governments of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan.

But for every success story, Wildgen said, there are plenty of opportunities that get scuttled because of a lack of commitment, inability to think long-term or inevitable conflicts of partisan politics.

Officials from the Legislative Division of Post Audit will be in Lawrence today to meet with representatives from 31 local governments to be reviewed. Auditors are looking for ways to save money through government consolidation and cooperation.The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Mass.

“There’s a lot of territoriality,” he said. “There’s a lot of turf there.”

But the state’s financial crunch could be just the impetus to get the ball rolling, said Craig Weinaug, county administrator.

“Sometimes that kind of environment gives people the opportunity to touch some things that you normally wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole,” Weinaug said.