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

The Lawrence Police Department takes a smaller chunk of the city’s budget each year when compared to dozens of other police departments across the country.

The department also employs more officers per resident, but spends far less on training than other departments.

Those are among some of the key findings about the Lawrence Police Department’s structure and financing, according to a new report.

Each year the City of Overland Park releases its Benchmark Cities Survey comparing a group of 30 police departments across the country in an effort to keep tabs on industry standards.

Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib said the department has participated in the survey since 2010 and the annual report can be one of several useful tools for comparing LPD to other, similar departments.

“It’s not the end-all. These are 30 different agencies across the United States; of course there are 17,000 law enforcement agencies,” he said. “I think it’s a general guide and you shouldn’t read too much into any one number, but just take a broad look.”

Lawrence Police Chief Tarik Khatib is pictured in the briefing room at the Law Enforcement Center on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016.

Examining police department budgets as a whole, LPD used 21.2 of Lawrence’s 2015 budget, the survey says. This is below the average of 28.3 percent.

“So you get lots of bang for your buck,” Khatib joked.

Translated to a dollar amount, LPD’s budget in 2015 was $17.4 million, while the city’s general expenditure budget was $81.9 million, the survey says.

Over the past five years, the majority of police departments participating in the survey decreased their percentage take of the city’s budget, the survey says.

But Lawrence ran counter to that trend. The Lawrence Police Department was among the 25 percent that saw its percentage of the city’s overall budget increase.

Khatib said LPD’s small percentage increase over the past five years is more an indication of minor budget changes than it is an indication the department is taking more of the city’s money.

Those budget changes are something Khatib said the Lawrence City Commission has been addressing for some time.

“The city has money in all kinds of different places and it’s hard to figure out what anybody’s budget really is, so let’s start this effort of moving things to the actual department budgets instead of having them in different line items,” he said regarding the commission’s past efforts.

“We’ve added a couple of positions here and there over the years, that could be a part of it. Part of it could be increases in salaries or benefits as well,” Khatib added about the increasing percentages. “It’s not a huge increase and what I can tell you is it’s not due to we got a new building, it’s not due to we have a whole big new amount of officers. We’ve only added 10 positions in the last 10 years, so that’s not very much.”

Next year the department’s budget as a percentage of the city’s will likely spike due to financial limitations at the state level, Khatib said.

Items LPD was not previously responsible for “are now being reflected in the police department’s budget,” he said. “For example, prisoner care costs, maintenance costs for the building, things that were elsewhere.”

Of LPD’s $17.4 million budget for 2015, approximately 87.7 percent — or $15.27 million — went to pay employee salaries. This figure is just above the survey’s average of 85.2 percent.

Over the past five years LPD’s personnel budget as a percentage has dropped — for the better — from the low 90s to the high 80s, Khatib said. The change indicates an increase in the department’s equipment budget more than it shows a decrease in the personnel budget, he said.

Of the departments participating in the survey, LPD has the third smallest authorized officer strength at 155 officers, the survey says. Compared to the city’s population, this means for every officer there are 627 citizens.

On average, the police departments surveyed employ one officer for every 729 citizens, placing LPD in the highest-ranking third on an officer-per-citizen basis.

Khatib said the placement is good, but only a partial look at the bigger picture.

In reality, LPD might employ more officers per citizen, but it’s important to recognize what is expected of the officers, Khatib said.

As a community, Lawrence places high standards on officers, Khatib said. Whether they’re expected to take part in neighborhood activities, work on follow-up investigations or work city events, each officer has a large number of responsibilities to handle.

To lighten the load, Khatib said he’d like to add between 25 to 30 officers to the department, admittedly a substantial request.

An unfortunate reality of LPD’s budget shows that alongside each officer’s significant responsibilities, there is less money than average to train them, Khatib said.

Only a tenth of a percent of LPD’s budget, $17,406, was spent on training, the survey says. Alongside Lincoln, Neb., and Grand Prairie, Texas, the Lawrence Police Department spent the lowest percentage of its budget on training.

The highest budget percentage spent on training came from the Coral Springs, Fla., Police Department, which totaled 1.8 percent of its budget, the survey says. In all, the departments averaged spending sixth-tenths of a percent on training.

The Lawrence Police Department is not unique in its diminishing training budget, however. Over the past five years, nearly two-thirds of the departments participating in the Benchmark Survey decreased their training budgets.

Khatib acknowledged the fledgling training budget is a weakness within the department, though he said it hasn’t impacted mandatory training hours as much as it has diminished the ability to hire outside speakers and explore additional educational opportunities.

To make up for the small training budget the department has tapped other money sources, such as trust funds the department builds through different seizures throughout the year, Khatib said.

“It doesn’t mean we haven’t done the training, but it means we’ve had to use other sources of revenue,” he said.

Fortunately, Khatib said LPD’s training budget numbers will show an increase in the 2016 Benchmark Reports because the department spent an additional $60,000 on training during the year.