Wait and wonder.

Government leaders said Monday they likely would spend a good amount of time doing both as they figure out how to live with property tax values that are expected to grow at a much slower rate than normal in 2007.

“We’re going to have to wait on a lot of things,” Randy Weseman, superintendent of the Lawrence school district, said at a joint study session of city and county commissioners and school board members. “I think we’re going to have to make do with what we have.”

Douglas County Appraiser Marion Johnson recently released projections that estimate existing homes in the county likely will grow in value by only 2.5 percent in 2007 – far short of the historical averages of 5 percent to 7 percent per year.

“The growth in the property tax is going to cover inflation and little else,” County Administrator Craig Weinaug told elected leaders.

That will leave city, county and school district leaders wondering whether they can proceed on large-ticket items.

“I believe you are going to need to weigh your desire to do these projects against your desire to keep property taxes low,” Weinaug said. “They are tough choices.”

Elected members from each of the three boards reviewed a list of big-ticket items that each governing body may seek to undertake in the next two to three years.

On the list: a $30 million library project; a possible purchase of the vacant Farmland Industries site; recreational complex needs brought forward by Partners for Lawrence Athletics and Youth; an approximately $4 million expansion of the county jail; an estimated $4 million expansion of the county’s Youth Detention facility; increased operational expenses for the school district to meet state and federal mandates; and the purchase of new office space to house a one-stop shop for city and county development/planning offices.

Weseman said the new estimates for property taxes create difficult funding scenarios for the school district, because unlike the city and the county, it cannot supplement its property tax revenue with sales taxes.

Weseman said, for example, that the district might have to wait to implement a full-day kindergarten program. He said the district also likely would have to tackle about $10 million worth of deferred maintenance on school buildings in much smaller phases.

Some leaders said they hoped economic development issues would not be put on the back burner. City Manager David Corliss said he thought local governments should be prepared to say yes to several economic development proposals because they offered the best chance at expanding the community’s tax base.

School board member Leonard Ortiz urged elected leaders to focus on ways to attract more commercial development rather than relying so heavily on residential property owners to pay the bulk of taxes.

“What we want for this town will be more difficult to accomplish if we just continue to go down the same path we have been on,” Ortiz said.

Leaders are wondering how long the moderation in property values may continue.

“I want to know whether we should walk away from here saying ‘We need to tighten our belts a little bit,’ or should we be saying that we really have to think about completely different ways to do business?” County Commissioner Charles Jones asked.

Johnson said it was tough to predict how long the moderation in values may occur. He said a large part of the slower increases in value were related to a national downturn in the housing market following a half-decade of record sales. Whether the market begins to pick up in the next few years is tough to predict.

But Johnson did caution that another key reason for the moderation is a new state law that exempts many types of business equipment and machinery from taxation. He said the community should expect to lose a majority of its $70 million in taxable personal property within the next five years as businesses replace their equipment with new tax-exempt pieces of machinery.