Many local taxpayers aren’t happy about the moderate property tax increases approved by the Lawrence school board and Douglas County Commission.

That’s certainly understandable, especially in the current economy, but taxpayers should remember that they also might not have been so pleased with the impact that zero-increase budgets would have had on immediate services and long-term goals in the district and the county.

City officials were able to come up with a budget that included a tiny property tax decrease of 0.014 of a mill. To do that, they eliminated 10 city positions in the city’s solid waste division, parks and recreation, public works and information technology. Time will tell whether the public will notice any difference in services because of those cuts.

At the same time, the city decided to increase revenue to the solid waste division by raising the monthly residential trash fee by 70 cents and allowing additional fees to pick up oversized items or piles of trash that take more than 5 minutes to clear. Those fees aren’t unreasonable, but they are a way to make people pay for services without raising property taxes.

The Lawrence school board looked at a property tax increase of more than 5 mills before scaling back to an increase of 2.076 mills. Board members eliminated 2 mills for capital improvements, but decided some increase was needed to make up some of the $4.6 million they had been forced to cut from the 2010-11 budget.

The County Commission’s decision to increase property taxes by 2.99 mills probably has drawn the most local attention, but even that amount is below the 3.3 mills to 3.5 mills County Administrator Craig Weinaug said would be required just to maintain the county’s status quo for the coming year.

The three county commissioners started with a budget that would have required a 5.23-mill increase. Although none of them found that acceptable, none of them thought a zero-increase budget was possible. They differed over a number of spending proposals, but none of them individually suggested cuts that got the property tax increase below about 2.3 mills.

Again, taxpayers’ concerns are understandable but so is the dilemma facing our local taxing units. Taxpayers can zero in on a few expenditures that seem unnecessary to them, but elected officials, some of whom went through those budgets line by line looking for cuts, believed a budget with no tax increase simply wasn’t an option.

The county’s overall property valuation was flat this year, but valuations on many individual properties declined, which will mitigate the burden on residential taxpayers somewhat. The tax increase will be difficult for some, but the cuts that would have been necessary to eliminate those increases also would have been painful.

Hopefully the national and local economy will pick up soon and make next year’s budget decisions less stressful for both elected officials and taxpayers.