News and notes from around town:

• It looks like Lawrence’s resurgence in the new-car industry is continuing. Multiple sources tell me that a Kansas City area dealership is close to bringing a Kia dealership to Lawrence. I haven’t quite got sources to confirm the exact location, other than to say it is not in the Lawrence Auto Plaza but is slated to take over the space of an existing commercial location. People I have talked to have been excited about the development. Kia is obviously a brand not currently offered in Lawrence, so here’s an opportunity to keep more dollars in the city. Plus, car dealers have been providing a boost to the downtrodden construction industry lately. Who would have thought that a couple of years ago? At one point the industry was looking pretty bleak in Lawrence. Chrysler pulled out of the market, and then Chevrolet. People were wondering if Lawrence was just going to become part of the Topeka and Kansas City markets when it came to new vehicles. But now both of those brands are back, and there’s been a mini-arms race among dealerships to spruce up with new construction projects. Ellena Honda did a major face-lift on its spot along South Iowa Street. Dale Willey, right across the street, made major improvements as it landed the Chevrolet brand. Then Briggs Auto Group announced plans to take over the Enterprise Rent-a-Car space and convert it into a Subaru dealership. And most recently, Laird Noller confirmed that it is doing a million-dollar-plus renovation of Laird Noller Hyundai on South Iowa Street.

• Did you see the news recently about the U.S. Postal Service proposing to lay off 120,000 employees and withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because they think they’re too expensive? It is just the latest news that has centered on public pension plans and the challenges they are creating for folks who have to pay the bills. The city of Lawrence certainly isn’t in the same boat that the post office is in, but there are certainly pension issues in Lawrence to keep an eye on. The City Commission tonight is scheduled to approve two new four-year contracts for its police and fire unions. We’ve previously touched on some of the pension issues involved with those negotiations, but not much. That’s mainly because I get the sense the pension wasn’t much of a discussion during the negotiations.

The two unions belong to the Kansas Police and Firemen’s Retirement System, while the rest of the city’s employees belong to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. Like most pension plans, they are funded in two ways: Employees contribute a part of their paycheck to the plan and then the city makes a contribution over and above an employee’s salary. A city official recently told me that the city doesn’t spend a lot of time on how much those two pension plans cost the city, because the two pension plans set the contribution rate and the expectation is that the city is going to be part of the plans.

I wonder, though, whether city employees are starting to pay more attention to it. That’s because the amount the city is paying on behalf of police and firefighters is growing at a much faster rate than for other city employees. In 2012, the city will pay an additional $36,592 to the KPERS plan to cover the 185 general fund employees covered by KPERS. Compare that to how much additional they’ll pay to cover the 277 employees in the KP&F. That amount for 2012 is $558,151. In other words, the city’s average contribution per employee increased $2,014 for police and fire employees, while it increased $197 for the general fund employees covered by KPERS. (There are other city employees covered by KPERS — such as utility workers and sanitation crew members — but the city accounts for them differently since their wages are paid for through rates rather than taxes. But their KPERS situation is similar.)

Another way to look at it is that the city will make a contribution equal to 16.54 percent of the gross earnings of a police and fire employee to the pension plan. For KPERS employees, the city makes a contribution equal to 14.54 percent (8.34 to KPERS and 6.2 percent to Social Security. KP&F members aren’t part of the Social Security system.)

Of course, there are two ways to look at this. One is that KP&F members are getting a good deal. The other is that KPERS employees are getting a bad deal because they have a pension system that isn’t adequately funding itself for the future. If KPERS adopted the same funding approach as KP&F — which I think some people argue should happen for the solvency of the system — just imagine what type of impact that would have on the city’s budget.

All of this is complicated — to a degree. When you consider the difference in retirement funding and the fact that the unions still get a cost-of-living increase while non-employees of the city don’t, I’m keeping my eyes open for any sign of a movement for other city employees to unionize. (Technically they aren’t unions because they can’t strike but they are employee groups with collective bargaining power.) The city’s code allows for at least two other broad groups of employees to organize into unions — clerical, technical and administrative support personnel; and service maintenance and skilled labor employees. To be fair, I don’t have any idea whether other city employees are contemplating such a move. City employees don’t share that type of chatter with me (at least not yet). I’m also not suggesting it should happen. What I am stating, though, is it would be a major change in how the city does business. The city spent the last five months negotiation with the police and fire unions. That took a lot of staff time, and I’m told the process wasn’t very pleasant. I’m not sure how unionized other municipal governments are in the state. That is something I’ll check out.

• Speaking of other municipalities, Overland Park made news last night. The Johnson County community long has had the lowest property tax rate of any community in the area. That’s still probably true, but it went up significantly last night. According to the Kansas City Star, the Overland Park City Council unanimously agreed to raise its mill levy by 4.1 mills — or 46 percent — to preserve city streets, hire more police officers and “maintain a healthy rainy-day fund.” I throw this news out there because Lawrence increased its mill levy too. But Lawrence’s increase was 1.88 mills. The bulk of that increase — 1.7 mills — was approved by voters to expand the Lawrence public library.