The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services’ Lawrence Area Office is no more.

On Thursday, the office’s operations were officially folded into a new six-county region based in Kansas City, Kan.

The change is not expected to affect services provided by or through the SRS office in Lawrence, 1901 Del.

The Lawrence office is not closing. Its 90 workers will remain here.

These workers’ upper-level supervisors, however, no longer will be based in Lawrence. Instead, their positions have been merged and are now housed in offices across the region.

“This is about increasing efficiency,” said Greg Valentine, former area director at SRS’ Manhattan office, who is now in charge of Kansas City Metro Region.

Arthurine Criswell, director at the Lawrence Area Office, resigned her position last month. Attempts to reach Criswell, for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Earlier, Criswell had supervised SRS operations in seven counties: Douglas, Franklin, Jefferson, Atchison, Jackson, Brown and Doniphan.

Under the new configuration, SRS operations in Douglas and Franklin counties have been merged with those in Johnson, Wyandotte, Leavenworth and Miami, creating the new Kansas City Metro Region.

Jefferson, Jackson, Brown, Atchison and Doniphan counties are now part of SRS’ Northeast Region, based in Topeka.

“We’ve collapsed a multitude of administrative structures in each region,” Valentine said. “Here in the K.C. Metro Region, we’ve gone from three area leadership teams that had about eight upper-level people on each team to one 10-person leadership team.

“In other words, we’ve gone from a 24-person leadership team to a 10-person leadership team,” he said. “This is going on all across the state.”

Before Thursday, SRS had 11 area offices throughout the state. It now has seven regions.

Plans call for eventually merging the Hays and Garden City regions into a single western Kansas unit.

Statewide, the consolidation is expected to cut $2 million in administrative costs. “The KC Metro’s share of that is $485,000,” Valentine said.

Plans call for a portion of the savings being used to fill long-vacant social worker and case manager positions.

Though Valentine’s office is in Kansas City, Kan., other regional administrators will be in Overland Park and Lawrence.

Carla Nakata, who had been in charge of the Lawrence Area Office’s child support enforcement efforts, is now assistant regional director of performance improvement. She remains in Lawrence.

The consolidation’s success remains to be seen.

“If it makes the system more efficient and more responsive to clients’ need, then it’ll be a good deal,” said Richard Jackson, executive director at East Central Kansas Community Action Program.

“I’m certainly in agreement on SRS’ needing to hire more social workers and case managers,” he said. “But whether they can do that by reducing administration — only time will tell.”