A proposed study on how the city should move forward on a multimillion dollar police headquarters project could last into mid-November, creating questions about whether city commissioners can feasibly address the issue during the upcoming 2016 budget session.

Commissioner Stuart Boley has released more details about what he would like an ad hoc citizens committee to study, and he has suggested a Nov. 17 deadline for its report. That is well past the August deadline the city has for passing a 2016 budget. But Boley said he thinks the commission can still work on ways to fund the police facility, even if it doesn’t exactly know what shape a facility may take.

“We can have a discussion about a funding mechanism,” Boley said. “We know it is going to cost money to build.”

Boley listed seven broad topics he wants an ad hoc committee to study. They are:

• Review the consultant reports and documents that previously have been prepared on the police headquarters issue.

• Consider the assumptions that have been made about staffing levels for the police department.

• Review plans for a new facility with an eye toward gaining efficiencies with other agencies. Specifically he mentions whether the city’s Municipal Court should also be located in a new police facility.

• Review “any other appropriate topic that relates to the group’s report and recommendations.”

• Consider funding options for improving police facilities.

• Deliver a report that provides recommendations to the City Commission.

Commissioners are scheduled to debate Boley’s proposal for a new committee at the commission’s Tuesday evening meeting.

“We have done listening sessions,” Mayor Jeremy Farmer said of several sessions that were held after voters rejected a sales tax proposal for the police project in November. “We love to have conversations in our community about the best way to move forward with things. What would be tragic is if we continue to have conversations and nothing happens in two or three years and the price tag goes up.”

Commissioners are operating on a tight timeline if they hope to come up with a plan for a police facility in the 2016 budget. Commissioners generally have budgets completed by the end of July. Prior to the April City Commission election, Farmer had staff members present an option that would allow the city to build a $26 million police headquarters on city-owned land without raising sales or property taxes.

But the plan would shift large amounts of funding away from the city’s parks and recreation maintenance activities and would cause several street projects to be delayed by several years. The April elections resulted in three new commissioners being elected to the five-member commission. The new commission has yet to have a discussion about whether it finds the no-tax increase plan feasible. The plan also has yet to receive a positive recommendation from the city manager’s office.

Farmer said he’s not sure when he may bring that plan up for debate by the commission, calling it “just one idea.”

“Am I going to put that plan on an agenda and try to get three votes?” Farmer said. “Not without having some more conversation.”

Boley said he has seen the details of that plan and has concerns about whether it would leave the city with enough financial flexibility for the future.

“I would worry about the impact that would have on the entire city government,” Boley said. “I’m new at this, but to me that didn’t seem like the optimal solution.”

Coming up with a new sales tax to fund a police headquarters building also appears to have some hurdles. Any new sales tax would require a citywide vote. Given that voters rejected a sales tax in November, Farmer said he is unlikely to support another sales tax proposal for the project.

“I think one of the reasons it lost was because it was a sales tax,” said Farmer, who said talk in Topeka of raising the statewide sales tax will only make a local increase more difficult.

Figuring out why voters did reject the November sales tax proposal may be important in how the City Commission proceeds. Boley said he believes the community still has questions about “what, where, how much, and how to pay for” a new police facility.

The questions of where and how to pay for a facility are widely acknowledged as still being outstanding issues. But several supporters of a police project have contended the questions of what and how much have largely been answered. A city-hired consultant/architect has recommended a 62,000 square-foot facility that includes covered parking for police vehicles, an indoor firing range and other features. The police chief has strongly endorsed that recommendation.

But Boley said the problem is many residents have not.

“Some people haven’t agreed on the ‘what,'” Boley said. “It is important that we convince them of the need. We have to engage them and answer their questions.”

Boley said that may involve the ad hoc committee taking a broader look at police needs. Boley said he did not find that the consultant’s report went into much depth to determine what the police department’s staffing needs really are.

“If really what we need most of all is more police officers or higher pay for police officers, we need to know that,” Boley said. “We have to balance all these things.”

Boley has suggested the names of several high-level executives to serve on the ad hoc committee, including former Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger; former president and CEO of the Kansas Regents Reggie Robinson; former COO of the Kauffman Foundation and a former executive vice chancellor at Kansas University, Paul Carttar; Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center CEO David Johnson; and Charles Epp, a professor at KU’s School of Public Administration.

Commissioners meet at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.