A property tax rate increase continues to loom large for Lawrence residents.

City commissioners at a study session Monday night struggled to find ways to cut enough out of the city budget to eliminate or at least reduce a proposed 0.98 mill increase in the city’s tax rate.

“There is definitely no easy way to do this at all,” Mayor Mike Amyx declared after the study session, which attracted about 30 members of the public to Fire Station No. 5.

Commissioners even floated the idea of cutting the much-talked-about increase in street maintenance to $5 million instead of the $6 million that is being proposed. The city currently spends about $4 million on street maintenance. Commissioners said that idea is still on the table, but interim City Manager David Corliss cautioned against it.

“We’re not going to be able decrease that dollar amount for street maintenance with any confidence,” Corliss said. “We are playing catch up.”

All five city commissioners said they weren’t interested in cutting the increase for street maintenance if it would lead to more costs in the long run. Staff members directed Public Works Director Chuck Soules to do a quick analysis of what $5 million could accomplish.

Even if city commissioners cut the proposed street maintenance budget by $1 million, there’s no guarantee it would result in a lower property tax rate. That’s because several commissioners presented new spending plans at the Monday session.

New spending plans

The biggest came from Commissioners Sue Hack and David Schauner, who both said that the community needed to increase its funding for economic development. Hack – who works part-time for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce and will abstain from voting on economic development funding issues – has long been championing the idea.

But Schauner threw his support behind the idea after, in part, reading about Olathe’s successful effort to attract a new research park by offering 90 acres of free land to Kansas State University and the Kansas Bioscience Authority. Schauner said he was concerned that Lawrence wasn’t generating similar successes.

“It seems like we’re behind the curve on this biosciences effort,” Schauner said.

Neither Schauner nor Hack recommended a specific amount of funding for economic development. Schauner, though, said he would only support an increase if a specific plan were presented that showed the community was going to get more aggressive.

All that left the prospect of a property tax rate increase squarely in play, especially with Hack and Commissioner Boog Highberger reaffirming that they could live with an approximately 1 mill increase.

The proposed 0.98 mill levy increase would boost the property tax bill of an average home by about $50 to $60 per year. That’s because in addition to the mill levy increase, homes also are expected to rise in value by about 6 percent, which also will cause tax bills to increase.

Amyx did ask commissioners to begin thinking about how to avoid mill levy increases in the future. He said the time may be nearing when the community will want to consider another sales tax to help catch up on street work and other issues. The city’s current one-cent sales tax generates about $12 million.

“It’s getting to the point that we’re probably going to have to ask the voters what they would support,” Amyx said.

Other developments

In other budget news, commissioners at their study session:

¢ Added $10,000 to the budget request of Health Care Access to partially fund a shortfall created by a reduction in state funding.

¢ Did not support the request to add two additional staff members to the city’s Human Relations Department, which deals with discrimination and fair housing issues, among others. Commissioners heard support from several members of the public to add the positions, but commissioners said several state agencies provided similar services.

¢ Did not add any new funding for parks beyond the approximately $900,000 that already was included in Corliss’ recommended budget. Bill Penny, a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, had told commissioners that the city was in sore need of additional gym space.

¢ Agreed to add two additional sergeants to the Police Department to help with neighborhood policing, despite objections from Schauner, who said he wasn’t convinced a clear plan had been presented for how the sergeants would be used.

Commissioners will meet about the budget again at 6:35 p.m. tonight at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts, as part of their regular weekly meeting. Commissioners plan to have the budget finalized by Aug. 8.