photo by: Mike Yoder

Traffic merges from four to two lanes in a construction zone near the intersection of Kasold Drive and Bob Billings Parkway, Thursday, July 7, 2016.

The Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday will set the maximum amount of the city’s 2017 budget — a proposal for which includes cuts, including to Lawrence’s street maintenance program.

City Manager Tom Markus’ recommended 2017 budget totals $191 million and no increase to the city’s mill levy. The commission’s vote Tuesday, in part, will be whether to increase the mill levy to generate more revenue to fund personnel and services Markus suggested eliminating.

In an effort to present a balanced budget, Markus called for about 40 requests from city departments, totaling $5.4 million, to go unmet, as well as $400,000 worth of requests from social service agencies. He’s proposing the elimination of one part-time position and nine full-time positions.

In addition, nearly $14.9 million in requested capital improvement projects wouldn’t be funded — including $2.86 million in contracted street maintenance.

In February, commissioners heard from Assistant Public Works Director Mark Thiel about “dwindling” dollars in recent years toward the city’s street maintenance program. The program, created in 2005, is intended to slow street deterioration and was designed to receive $6 million annually in order to be sustainable.

According to city-provided data, the program was allocated $5.7 million in 2012, and then dropped to $4.4 million in 2013; $4.3 million in 2014; and $3.6 million in 2015 before being budgeted the lowest amount yet: $2.8 million in 2016.

In the proposed 2017 budget, $3.14 million is allocated for the program. Under a new, five-year capital improvement program, the program would maintain that level of funding through 2021.

In 2008, when voters approved the 0.3 percent sales tax for infrastructure, they were told the funds would “enhance rather than supplant” funding for infrastructure projects. Before the tax passed, contracted street maintenance was receiving more funds than it is now.

Separate from the street maintenance program, millions of dollars are proposed in 2017 to go toward other large street projects, including a reconstruction of Kasold Drive from Sixth Street to Bob Billings Parkway and Wakarusa Drive from Inverness to Sixth Street.

The City Commission meets at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.