photo by: Journal-World

The west side of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.

Douglas County leaders could soon complete the process of approving the county’s budget for 2023.

At their meeting on Wednesday, Douglas County commissioners will conduct a public hearing on the $163.7 million budget proposal, where they will hear comments from county residents. Following that, they will vote on whether to approve the budget.

Before voting on the budget, the commission can make changes to one or more of its funds. The county has already set a maximum spending level for the budget — also at $163.7 million — and now that that’s set, commissioners can decrease the county’s spending level but can’t increase it.

The proposed budget calls for a mill levy of 46.380 mills, which is a decrease of one mill from the previous budget year. However, due to rising property values, many county residents are still going to see a property tax increase. This year, property values have increased 10% or more in many cases.

Under the proposed budget, Douglas County’s fund balances — the equivalent of savings accounts — would start 2023 with $10 million more than they had at the beginning of this year, as the Journal-World previously reported. Since the beginning of 2019, the fund balances have grown by nearly $30 million.

In addition to money for county operations, the budget would also fund more than $600,000 in supplementary budget requests from community partners, including Tenants to Homeowners, the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority and DCCCA.

Also on Wednesday, commissioners will conduct a similar hearing on the 2023 budget for Consolidated Fire District No. 1, which provides firefighting services to rural areas of Douglas County. That budget includes $1.7 million in funding, and its mill levy would remain unchanged from last year at 5.5 mills. The district covers most of the northern half of Douglas County, excluding Lawrence and Eudora.

In other business, the commission will:

• Consider issuing a request for proposals for professional design services to review the county’s “master plan” document and update a renovation project for the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

The county began a space needs assessment of its departments and facilities in the downtown Lawrence area in 2017, and that study was used to generate the master plan document in 2020. Since then, Douglas County has added a district court judge position, and the county has had to adjust many aspects of its operations over the past several years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. County staff is now recommending that the master plan be revisited to ensure that it fully addresses the county’s operational needs.

• Consider a funding request of $81,931.50 from the Center for Supportive Communities to support truancy prevention services for elementary and middle school students.

A letter from CSC founder and CEO Kelsey Dachman to the commission says the funding would be used to cover the agency’s remaining operating expenses for fall 2022. The majority of the amount the agency requested, $71,400, will be used to support one full-time position and three part-time positions that were previously funded through the University of Kansas, where the truancy prevention program used to be housed.

Wednesday’s business meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. The meeting will also be available by Zoom. For meeting information, visit the county’s website: dgcoks.org/commissionmeetings.