photo by: Nick Krug

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on May 3, 2016.

With Lawrence facing financial hurdles, City Manager Tom Markus is recommending staff cuts in the 2017 budget, including several positions he called “nontraditional” to other cities.

“They’re not positions you would find in every jurisdiction,” Markus said Monday. “I think they’re nice positions to have, but being not universal types of positions — that brings them to my attention.”

The city auditor, director of arts and culture, small business facilitator and assistant director of finance are the positions up for elimination that are currently filled. One unfilled part-time position and four unfilled full-time positions would also be cut.

On Monday, 10 members of the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission sent a signed letter to commissioners urging them to keep the arts and culture director in the budget.

City Auditor Michael Eglinski said about his position Monday: ” I think there’s a decision here about the office’s function. It’s an important decision.”

The City Commission makes final determinations on annual budgets. Commissioners will have about a month to review and revise Markus’ proposal, which it will see Tuesday at a public work session. The session starts at 3 p.m. at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.

Director of arts and culture

The creation of a city arts and culture director was a recommendation in 2013 from a nine-person task force formed to discuss improvements for Lawrence’s cultural district.

photo by: Nick Krug

Porter Arneill

Lawrence Arts Center CEO Susan Tate, a member of that task force, said in a written statement Monday that cutting the position — or any arts funding — was a “cynical and utilitarian move antithetical to the character and cultural heritage of Lawrence.”

Porter Arneill, the current arts and culture director, is the second person to hold the position. He was hired in 2015, when the first director resigned after only three months.

Arneill serves as city liaison for the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission. The commission’s letter, as well as Tate’s, said the position was “integral.”

Arneill, who declined to comment Monday, has worked to coordinate the creation of a citywide cultural plan, and he’s overseen the East Ninth Project. He’s also entered Lawrence and Douglas County into a national research study of how the arts affect economic prosperity.

“These initiatives have resulted from community-wide planning processes intended to keep the arts a vital part of the future economic success and civic fabric of our city, and they should be directed by a city Director of Arts and Culture,” Tate said.

According to city data, cutting the position would save Lawrence more than $105,000 in salary and benefits.

“No matter what position you pick, there’s a constituency related to that position,” Markus said Monday. “If it wasn’t this, and it was another, I’d have the same kind of concerns from the constituency that supported or advocated or lobbied to try to have that position funded by the city.”

City auditor

Eglinski was named Lawrence’s first city auditor in 2008, after the City Commission voted to make the position part of city ordinance. Under ordinance, Eglinski reports directly to the City Commission, conducting performance reviews of city services with the goal of improving efficiency.

The City Commission appoints the auditor. The position is not under the supervision of the city manager.

Among other things, Eglinski has audited the Lawrence Community Shelter; the city’s handling of the Rock Chalk Park project; the city’s old rental registration program; and the amount of fluoride in the city’s drinking water. He’s urged Lawrence to do more long-term financial planning, and he’s recommended that outside, city-funded agencies be required to open up their financial records to city review. Next week, he’ll present a report to commissioners on his audit of economic development incentives.

Eglinski, who was on vacation last week and found out Thursday evening about his position being up for elimination, said he plans to talk to commissioners “about the value of the city auditor function.”

“This is a function where I am looking at the city and raising issues,” Eglinski said.

The Association of Local Government Auditors issued a “message to local government leaders” in 2013, asking officials to support full funding of in-house auditors in times of limited financial resources. In part, the message relays that auditors: “help identify opportunities for cost savings,” monitor program performance and detect fraud.

Markus, who has served as a city manager in various Midwestern cities in the past 40 years, said there has not been a city auditor in any other city he’s worked.

“It’s a fairly unique position,” he said.

Without a city auditor, Markus said the city would contract for outside audits “when we have a special situation.”

When created in 2008, the city auditor position paid an annual salary of $87,500. Employee salaries in 2015 were not available from the city Monday. Of the position’s total salary and benefits, $61,000 comes from the city’s general fund.

‘Could have cut more’

To avoid a budget deficit, Markus was tasked with cutting $1.5 million in spending from the general fund, he said.

Most spending from the general fund, historically about 70 percent, has been used to pay city employees and for employee health insurance.

“When you make cuts in an organization that’s primarily personnel and their associated benefits, you have to look at the personnel side of things to get a cut that has permanence,” Markus said. “You have to make cuts that are structural.”

In previous years, the city has “deficit budgeted,” Markus said, and pulled money from other funds. In addition, cuts were necessary heading into another financial obstacle in 2018: the new state tax lid law.

Markus said he “could have cut more” positions to prepare for the law to go into effect.

The law requires Kansas cities and counties to receive voter approval before increasing their property tax revenues beyond the rate of inflation.

Because of an increase in assessed valuation for the city (the value of property from which Lawrence can levy taxes), the amount received from property taxes will grow 3.8 percent for the 2017 budget. Had the tax lid been effective in 2017, the growth would have been limited to 1.6 percent, Markus figured, and the budget would’ve included more drastic personnel cuts.

“That’s pretty critical,” Markus said. “To some degree, our public may have forgotten that this tax lid law is looming and that this is going to cause even further reductions in expenses for the city and start to impair some core services.”