‘Tis the season for asking at Lawrence City Hall.

City commissioners Tuesday began the first round of hearings for the 2007 city budget, and heard a variety of requests from city department heads. They ranged from a gee-whiz technology that would allow City Commission meetings and other events to be recorded and viewed on the Internet to a request for the first armed security guard at Municipal Court.

Here’s a look at several of the new programs or positions that department heads are seeking:

¢ Internet meetings. City Clerk Frank Reeb is asking for a $42,000 software program that would allow city officials to record City Commission meetings in a format that can be easily placed online.

“It would allow us to have a complete video and audio archive of City Commission meetings on the Web site,” Reeb said. “It would be available to anyone 24 hours per day, seven days per week.”

Commissioners also could use the device to record meetings of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission or other city advisory boards. That could give city commissioners another tool in making decisions, Reeb said.

For example, instead of relying on a written set of minutes from a Planning Commission meeting, city commissioners could have staff members play the relevant portion of the meeting.

In addition to $42,000 in start-up costs, the system would have about $15,000 a year in operational costs. But Reeb estimated it would save his staff considerable time in preparing written minutes. His staff would continue to do written minutes, but he estimated that the process would take about eight hours of staff time per week compared with about 20 hours now.

¢ Court security. Interim City Manager David Corliss, who also is the city’s director of legal services, said he wanted city commissioners to consider adding a full-time security officer at the Municipal Court. Corliss said the officer would be a sworn police officer. It would be the first time the court would have a full-time armed security officer. Currently, the court uses part-time security personnel that are not part of the police force.

Corliss said the security officer also would be able to spend about half his time working to resolve outstanding warrants that are pending at the court. The court has about 3,500 outstanding warrants at any given time. Most are related to people not showing up to court after receiving a ticket.

¢ Deteriorating houses. Victor Torres, director of the city’s Neighborhood Resources Department, said he would like to add a full-time inspector who would search for homes in the city that are badly deteriorating.

The idea of the program would be to require improvements on homes before they get to the point that they would need to be demolished. Currently, the city only deals with the houses on a complaint basis. Torres said the new position would allow the city to create a formal program and be more proactive in dealing with the “demolition by neglect” issue.

The program would cost about $85,000 in its first year, which would cover salary, benefits and $25,000 to do repair work on properties that would require city assistance.

¢ Library salaries. Bruce Flanders, director of the Lawrence Public Library, told commissioners that he’s seeking a 7 percent average salary increase for the library staff.

Flanders said his research indicated that salaries for library staff employees were about 25 percent less than library salaries in similar Midwest cities. The City Commission approved an 8 percent salary increase last year, but Flanders said more was needed to improve the library’s competitiveness.

Commissioners will have additional budget hearings at 2 p.m. today and 9 a.m. Thursday, both at City Hall. The commission must pass a budget for 2007 by early August.