photo by: Nick Gerik

Massachusetts Street is shown filled with pedestrians on Saturday, March 31, 2018, as the city cleared the roadway of traffic and parked vehicles in advance of the University of Kansas basketball team's game in the Final Four.

It cost the City of Lawrence more than $75,000 to prepare for and oversee downtown crowds for the appearance of the University of Kansas men’s basketball team in the Final Four.

Though the team did not make it to the championship game, Lawrence officials say the city would have been ready to manage the crowds and the ensuing celebration.

“It was all in all successful, and had they won, it seems like we would have been in a good position,” city spokesman Porter Arneill said.

The city’s costs related to the team’s 2018 Final Four appearance totaled about $75,500, with overtime wages for police officers representing the largest expense at about $23,200, according to a report recently provided to the Journal-World. Overall, personnel costs for police, public works, and fire and medical personnel made up about $58,200, or about 77 percent of the total.

The police department represents the largest overall cost. In addition to the $23,200 for overtime, the city paid about $17,800 for regular police hours and $10,600 for materials, including portable toilets for downtown and food and water for officers. As in year’s past, the city required the help of outside law enforcement agencies to manage the large crowds.

Win or lose, NCAA tournament games bring thousands of people to downtown Lawrence, and the city took some extra precautions this year, including the choice to close down Massachusetts Street on March 31 from Sixth to 11th streets for safety reasons. Some downtown businesses were concerned that the all-day closure of Massachusetts Street would deter shoppers from coming downtown that day, which was a Saturday.

Assistant Public Works Director Mark Thiel said the city’s main costs associated with the street closure were labor and materials costs to rent, set up and take down barricades. The city closed the street beginning at 5 a.m. for the evening game and placed heavy, water-filled barricades at certain intersections to separate people and vehicles.

“They are hollow, so that makes them easier to move around, but they have the same effect as the concrete barriers once they’re filled with water,” Thiel said. He said that the city has used the barricades for other events, and that anytime there is a downtown event, the department coordinates with the police department, which prepares an operations plan.

All together, costs for the public works department totaled about $12,100, or about 16 percent of the total cost. That amount includes labor costs for public works employees, rental of the barricades and other equipment, such as the use and setup of traffic message boards.

Regarding the street closure, police department spokesman Derrick Smith noted in an email to the Journal-World that it was the first time Massachusetts Street had been closed for the Final Four and that overall things went well. Smith said he could not disclose additional tactics and precautions used to prepare for the event, as doing so could compromise the safety of individuals during future Final Fours.

Arneill said that the city did gain some experience for the next time the Jayhawks make it to the Final Four. He said that the city didn’t know how long it would take to clear Massachusetts Street of vehicles and make the other preparations, and that the city may not need so much time in the future should it decide to close the street again.

“Obviously, it’s all case by case, depending on the circumstances, but there’s always a learning curve on these things and we certainly have met and talked about that,” Arneill said. “So in the future, adjustments could be made to be less impactful.”

The city incurs extra costs for personnel and equipment whenever the KU men’s basketball team advances to the Final Four. In 2012, the Journal-World reported that the team’s advancement to the championship game, which it ultimately lost, cost the city nearly $180,000.

Those costs, though, also even out in some respects. This year, the Journal-World reported that the sales tax report that corresponds to March sales showed that collections in Lawrence increased by 7.4 percent compared with the same month in 2017. That equates to about an extra $10 million in sales and about $150,000 in extra taxes that happened in the Lawrence economy during the one-month period.

The Journal-World originally requested the Final Four costs in April, and was told on subsequent occasions that those figures had not yet been tabulated. The city provided the cost report to the Journal-World earlier this month following a records request.