Last one to the ballot box is a rotten egg.

Or at least, after last week’s decision by the Lawrence school board to put a tax increase for teacher salaries on the April ballot, that’s what city commissioners fear.

City commissioners had been contemplating putting a sales tax for street maintenance and infrastructure on the ballot in August or November. Now, they’re worried that the school district’s proposal for a half-mill property tax increase will kill any chance of voters approving a sales tax.

“Regardless of the merits, it is difficult to go to the well twice,” City Commissioner Rob Chestnut said.

Other city commissioners agreed. Mayor Sue Hack called the prospect of winning a sales tax election after either a successful or unsuccessful property tax election “extremely difficult.” City Commissioner Mike Amyx, a longtime Lawrence politician, said he didn’t think voters would respond well to two tax requests in a single year, especially because part of the city’s sales tax pitch was to convince voters that a sales tax would make future property tax increases less likely.

“I was hoping that we would have been able to have discussions with the school board, but that obviously did not happen,” Amyx said.

Off guard

Hack also expressed disappointment that the two sides weren’t able to work together to coordinate a plan to address both groups’ funding needs. Hack said she first learned that the school district was seriously considering an April election when she read an article in the Journal-World about three weeks ago.

“If we would have known several months in advance, it perhaps could have allowed us to do something together,” Hack said.

The city, county and school board meet together on a quarterly basis to discuss issues of joint concern. The idea of an April school election did not come up in any previous meetings.

But Superintendent Randy Weseman said city commissioners had never briefed school board members on a potential sales tax issue either. Commissioners have been publicly talking about a sales tax proposal – anywhere from a half-cent to a full-cent – for nearly two years. But commissioners have not been able to reach agreement on the details, and had never taken any action to place the issue on a future ballot.

“I only knew what I was reading in the paper,” Weseman said.

But Weseman said he thought the biggest reason for a lack of discussion wasn’t an animosity between the two governments, but rather that different budget cycles make it difficult for the two to coordinate. The school district’s budget year starts on July 1. The city’s starts on Jan. 1.

Weseman said it is the summer start date that makes an April election necessary for the school board. He said teacher negotiations actually will start in February or March, meaning that the district needs to know soon how much money it will have available.

The school district has invited the city to add a sales tax issue to the April ballot, but commissioners have said that didn’t leave enough time to educate voters.

Johnson County model

But Weseman said he is open to ideas. The most prominent one is what Johnson County leaders have done.

In 2002, Johnson County commissioners put forward a quarter-cent sales tax proposal, with the understanding that the county’s portion of the tax would go to each of the county’s six school districts. Voters approved it, and then renewed it in 2005. It is scheduled to expire at the end of 2008.

But for six years, the districts have been splitting $16 million to $18 million a year to use for district needs, said Mike Press, the county manager for Johnson County.

School districts aren’t allowed to levy their own sales tax. Johnson County was able to funnel the money to school districts under a provision that allows cities and counties to fund economic development activities.

“We made an agreement that the schools in Johnson County have been a key part of our economic development for the past 50 years,” Press said. “People have been moving here for our schools for a long time.”

Weseman said the school district would welcome a discussion of such a sales tax agreement in Lawrence.

“Absolutely, 100 percent, we would be open to that,” Weseman said. “Just invite us, and we’ll be there.”

Weseman said city, county and school board leaders did meet about the issue approximately five years ago. The idea never took off, in part, because the city and county had maxed out their state-authorized sales tax authority. To create a new sales tax would have required a special act by the Legislature.

But that has now changed. Cities and counties have been given additional sales tax authority by the Legislature. Weseman said now may be a good time to revisit the issue.

A half-cent sales tax in Lawrence would raise about $6 million a year. The half-mill increase that the school district is asking voters to approve would raise about $680,000. State law allows the school district and the city to split the sales tax in whatever way they see fit.

City commissioners, when presented with the idea, largely said they would have to study it further. Weseman said he may request that it be discussed at the next joint meeting of the governments, which is scheduled for Feb. 11.