photo by: Nikki Wentling

Lawrence Finance Director Bryan Kidney, far left, explains the budgeting process Monday, May 16 to those attending a public input session on the city's 2017 budget. Approximately 80 people showed up to the meeting to tell their priorities to the City Commission.

About 80 people on Monday attended the second public input session on Lawrence’s 2017 budget, about seven times as many than attended the first.

City leaders hosted the two meetings to gain feedback on what services should be prioritized as commissioners begin forming the 2017 budget. Members of Justice Matters, a consortium of 22 local religious organizations, made up most of the crowd and steered much of the conversation toward one issue in particular: affordable housing.

“The day has arrived when we put some money where our mouth is on affordable housing,” said Ben MacConnell, lead organizer for Justice Matters. “This commission is different than the last several, and I think they have a mandate to be the peoples’ commission.”

The two-hour discussion was punctuated by raised voices and occasional applause. The room broke out into cheers when MacConnell said: “I’ll be honest; I’ll be gravely disappointed if this City Commission doesn’t take the priority of affordable housing and do something very meaningful with it in short order.”

Like at the first meeting May 12, community members were asked to place stickers next to 21 different city services, indicating whether they wanted each service to receive lessened, equal or more funding than it has in the past.

Besides affordable housing, other issues for which Justice Matters advocates — mental health and social services — received the most votes for more funding.

Most participants were also in favor of bicycle and pedestrian improvements.

Marilyn Hull, who chairs Lawrence’s Pedestrian-Bicycle Issues Task Force, asked that commissioners consider opinions from others in attendance and not only those of Justice Matters. She wanted to prioritize creating and maintaining city sidewalks and ADA-compliant ramps.

“I applaud them in bringing those important issues to the attention of the community, but they haven’t, however, picked out all of the important issues,” Hull said of Justice Matters. “I want to make sure we don’t jump to say, ‘These are the priorities of the community,’ at the exclusion of other things that have also been articulated.”

A dozen or so people spoke Monday in favor of funding for affordable housing, and about another 30 stood when asked by a Justice Matters member who was there principally to advocate for affordable housing.

When asked repeatedly which services should be deemphasized in order to allow for more funding toward affordable housing, the group was reluctant to offer ideas.

Last week, City Manager Tom Markus told a much smaller group “belt-tightening” must be part of the 2017 budget discussions. Markus again named challenges Lawrence is facing: a property tax lid effective in 2017, unfunded mandates from the Kansas Legislature and a city budget in which “balance hasn’t been that great.”

City Finance Director Bryan Kidney has said the main fund for public services will continue decreasing over the next five years if the city continues making and spending money at the same rate it is now.

One Justice Matters member suggested cutting back on street maintenance; another said tourism should receive less; and several criticized the city’s use of economic development incentives.

Using the sticker system, the services that received the highest number of votes for less funding were: arts and culture, parks and recreation, tourism and economic development.

But Markus told the group that coming up with a source of funding for affordable housing was “really not your responsibility.”

“Clearly, I’ve heard about affordable housing. I get it,” he continued. “We’re going to allocate money; how much, I don’t know yet, but we have to start. But don’t come back to me afterward and say, ‘But you cut this.’ I will cut some things, OK?”

Some of the savings could come from a reduction in city staff. Markus said he worked out cutbacks through attrition in his previous two city manager positions in Michigan and Iowa.

“I’m going to hear back from people because they won’t like the fact I’m not creating employment opportunities at City Hall,” Markus said. “But with this tax lid law, additional mandates to us… as the city manager, whose responsibility it is to prepare and present a budget to the City Commission, this burden ultimately comes to me.”

Markus will present his recommended budget to the City Commission in July. Commissioners will pass a budget in August.

The next step in the budgeting process is a 3 p.m. work session May 24, at which commissioners will review and score applications for capital improvement projects. A public comment period on the 2017 budget is scheduled for the City Commission’s regular meeting May 24, starting at 5:45 p.m.

“When you start talking about a $200 million budget, it’s a good idea to find out from the public and the taxpayers how they would like to see that money spent,” Mayor Mike Amyx said Monday. “We’re still in the beginning stages. There’s going to be ample time for everybody to speak and express their opinion.”