The Lawrence school district isn’t planning on building any new schools anytime soon, not with population growth languishing, budgets dwindling and financial uncertainty lingering.

But borrowing money to repair, expand or otherwise upgrade existing schools? That’s another matter entirely.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Rick Doll, district superintendent. “That’s the bottom line.”

Administrators and members of the Lawrence school board are starting early discussions about when and how the district might prepare to embark on its next round of major construction, now that work on a sweeping series of athletics upgrades is nearly complete.

Officials know there’s plenty of work to do. A list of potential repairs and relatively minor upgrades — estimated at $9.6 million and counting — continues to build for schools, as some expenditures have been postponed while the district reorganizes heading into next year: sixth grade moving into middle schools and ninth grade shifting into actual high schools.

Enrollments will adjust. Curriculum will change. Activities will adapt.

School buildings and sites, at some point, will be in for some alterations, too.

“Just because a building is standing does not mean it’s functional and where it should be for the kids,” said Scott Morgan, a board member who serves on the Lawrence Elementary School Facility Vision Task Force, a group appointed to assess the district’s elementary needs for physical and programming improvements.

“Our older buildings need some love, and I think we have the ability to provide that, and we can’t just push it off until it becomes more expensive and harder to do down the road,” Morgan said.

Board members recently learned that much of the district’s ongoing debt for previous bond issues would be going off the books in the coming years, injecting potential for financial flexibility into their capital plans.

The district would be able to borrow another $36 million in the 2012-13 school year, plus another $77.8 million in 2014-15, without increasing the district’s tax rate for such work, said Kathy Johnson, the district’s division director for finance.

But volunteers serving on the task force, meeting once every two weeks since August, understand the financial — and political — realities facing the district. Compiling project recommendations, building public support and pursuing approval of a bond issue all take time.

The task force’s own recommendations won’t be ready until February.

“It’s going to take a while,” said Chuck Warner, a retired bank president and chairman of a task force subcommittee addressing efficiency issues. “You can’t just take out the checkbook.”

Tom Waechter, chairman of the task force’s subcommittee regarding the condition of facilities, said any list of improvements would take some detailed study to determine costs.

But one thing’s for certain: Instead of building one school for $20 million or $30 million, the district would be better off considering a larger list of less-involved projects.

Eliminate portables. Add an elevator. Expand classrooms. Build a separate gymnasium or cafeteria. Replace heating and cooling systems.

“There is a need for significant reinvestment in existing buildings,” Waechter said. “They’ll have to generate a number for what those improvements will look like.”

Waechter does offer one bit of caution: No matter what the overall task force recommends, or board members endorse, or voters approve, the district’s ongoing budget pressures will still exist for operations.

“You can’t solve a next-year budget problem with a building project that’s still several years away,” he said.