While the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission are nervously looking at possible property tax increases of around 1 mill each, the Lawrence school board was talking this week about a increase of between 3 and 3.6 mills.

Board members are saying that the district really needs the money and that because Lawrence is a community that supports education, its taxpayers will understand the increase. Historically, they are right. In the last two years, budgets that raised the district’s property taxes by 5.5 mills and 6.4 mills respectively were approved by the board with almost no public comment or protest.

Now comes another increase of between 3 and 3.6 mills. School board members say the increase is essential to raise the local option budget to an amount equal to 30 percent of the general fund budget. The state says the LOB must be that high for the district to qualify for about $1.275 million in cost-of-living funds available to districts that have higher housing costs. All of that money goes toward teacher salaries, and without those funds, the district would have to cut other areas to make up for that loss.

The Lawrence district also had to meet the 30 percent LOB threshold last year, but the matching amount has gone up this year because the general fund has increased. Those increases were a result of various factors including additional funding for special education and at-risk students and $1.6 million in state funds intended to offset the cost of opening new facilities in the district

The $1.6 million seemed strange to some people, given that the $54 million bond issue approved in April 2005 was supposed to cover the cost to “construct, furnish and equip a new South Junior High” and other junior high and high school improvements. Officials say, however, that the state funding is flexible enough to allow its use on other district projects.

It’s a complicated formula that’s difficult to understand. What local taxpayers do understand, however, is that there seems to be no end to increases in the local school district mill levy. Almost all of the additional $2.9 million to $3.4 million local taxpayers would pay with a 3- or 3.6-mill increase would go to meet the 30 percent LOB requirement. That would allow the district to collect $1.275 million in cost-of-living funds. We may not want to leave state dollars on the table, but is this a good deal?

Well-intentioned school district officials will tell you that every dollar of this funding is absolutely essential to pay teacher salaries and address building needs. They are sincere in that belief, but are the school district’s needs any more pressing than the need of the city and county to fund basic services like street repairs and law enforcement salaries?

Lawrence residents are extraordinarily supportive of education. We want the best for our children, and many taxpayers believe our teachers should be paid more. But we also want well-maintained streets and reliable public services. City and county commissioners also have many ways they would like to spend additional tax money, but in an effort to keep property taxes down, they have accepted the fact that you don’t always get what you want.

Maybe Lawrence school officials should take another look at their budget with that axiom in mind.