Let us count what Lawrence legitimately may be able to claim it is the capital of:

• Crazed Basketball Fans Who Spend 30 Hours a Week on Face Painting and Basketball Recruiting Notebooks

• Football Fans Who Find It too Much Work to Watch Their Football Team

• People Who Honk for “Hemp” (Undoubtedly, it is the hemp they really are interested in.)

So, perhaps it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Lawrence might be able to lay claim to another title: Capital of the Part-Time Worker.

A new national study suggests part-time workers may be more prevalent in the Lawrence economy than in any other metro area in the country. The respected publication Governing has analyzed a set of federal statistics about the average number of hours private sector employees work in a week. It found in July that Lawrence employees worked just 25.6 hours per week, on average. The article found that was the lowest weekly average of any metro area in the country.
It certainly is low. The national average was 34.5 hours per week. University communities often come in less than the national average because they have a large number of students who work part time, and those workers bring the overall average down. But a quick look at the numbers would suggest that there is down, and then you make your way through the empty kegs, the the lawn chairs, the copies of Leisurely Living magazine, the intricate origami projects, and then you find Lawrence. In other words, Lawrence was a lot lower than many university communities.

Here’s a look at some other university communities:

• Ames, Iowa: 36.1 hours

• Bloomington, Ind.: 32.5 hours

• Champaign-Urbana, Ill.: 32.5 hours

• College Station, Texas: 36 hours

• Columbia, Mo.: 35 hours

• Fort Collins, Colo.: 33.3 hours

• Iowa City, Iowa: 35.9 hours

• Lubbock, Texas: 35.6 hours

• Manhattan: 33 hours

• Morgantown, W.Va. 38.3 hours

There were three university communities I particularly wanted to check in on. If you remember, I reported on another study earlier this month that found Lawrence was one of the smartest metro areas in the country, measured by average degree level held by its residents. Only Provo, Utah, Ithaca, N.Y. and Boulder, Colo. were found to be smarter than us. But Provo works 34.1 hours, Ithaca, 35.1 hours and Boulder, 34.4 hours. Who is smarter now, brainiacs? We’re making origami Yodas over here, while you’re staring at some database or something.

I also wanted to check out how other communities around us fared. Here are those numbers:

• Kansas City: 34.8 hours

• Topeka: 32.7 hours

• Wichita: 36.6 hours

• Joplin, Mo.: 38.3 hours

• St. Joseph, Mo.: 33.2 hours

So, it doesn’t appear that our region is much different than the national scene, except for Lawrence. It is almost like people are driving to work and saying, “Hey, that’s hemp. Let’s skip work and honk for awhile.”

Obviously, I’m just having a little fun here. I don’t know exactly what these numbers mean. But as the article in Governing pointed out, the numbers are kind of important. Businesses often look at the average number of hours their employees are working when determining whether to add workforce. Generally, communities with high average work weeks are more likely to be adding jobs than those with low average work weeks.

But who knows if that is really true. I think the best we can do is ask the origami Yoda for his opinion.

In other news and notes from around town:

• I have some leftovers from last night’s City Commission meeting. The city did successfully issue a little more than $46 million in debt last night. The general obligation bonds are for projects that already have been approved and mainly already built. That includes the library, Rock Chalk Park recreation center, a host of street projects and others. The city sold about $26 million worth of bonds to Piper Jaffray with an interest rate of 2.758 percent, and about $19 million to Citibank with an interest rate of 2.786 percent. The city also issued about $13 million temporary notes (think of it like a one-year construction loan) to Citibank for a rate of 0.187 percent. Financial companies really like buying the city’s debt these days. Nine companies made bids on the bonds, which is a large number of bidders for a Lawrence bond sale.

The bond sale was noteworthy for another reason. It is the last one that Ed Mullins, the city’s finance director, will oversee. Mullins is retiring later this month after serving as the city’s chief financial officer for the last 23 years. Mullins has been a behind-the-scenes guy on essentially every major project the city has undertaken. He’s the guy that city staffers go to and ask: Can we afford this? Or maybe the conversation is more along the lines of “Figure out how we can afford this.” I don’t know on that, but I do know Mullins is the guy who is responsible for putting together all the financial numbers and projections for the millions of dollars of debt the city has on its books. That can get complicated in a hurry, but as the recent debt auction indicated, Lawrence fares very well in the interest rates it receives and the amount of confidence bond buyers have in Lawrence’s finances.

“He has shown great stewardship for this community,” City Manager David Corliss said of Mullins last night. City commissioners agreed and gave him an ovation upon the completion of last night’s debt issuance.

If you’ve worked or dealt with Mullins over the years, you’re invited to a city-hosted retirement reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 19 at City Hall.