photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Courthouse is pictured Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022.

Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will receive an update on this year’s operations and the outlook for 2024 for the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical department, which receives millions of dollars of county funding toward its operations.

A large portion of the fire and medical department budget is funded by the city of Lawrence to pay for firefighting services the department provides inside the city limits. But Douglas County also provides millions to the department to help fund the ambulance service that LDCFM provides countywide.

Materials provided in the agenda packet show that the department’s budget is roughly $31.5 million for 2024, with another $5.98 million set aside in Capital Improvement Plan funding. The county is budgeted to provide around $10 million in funding for the department in 2024, according to the report.

The report also includes overviews of LDCFM’s ambulance replacement program, transport fee structure, hiring outlook and potential expansion of partnerships. The report notes that department leaders hope the city and county can have discussions in 2024 about changing the fee schedule the department uses to charge people who use ambulance and EMS services in the county. Details about potential increases in the ambulance fee or other changes weren’t listed in the report.

In other business, commissioners will:

• Consider changes to Douglas County’s Natural and Cultural Heritage grant program guidelines. Among the proposed changes, according to materials in the agenda packet, are revised application and grant-scoring criteria for projects that receive funding. Those revisions, according to the agenda packet, were aimed at making the process “more equitable and accessible to applicants” for “projects that aim to share diverse stories of heritage in Douglas County.”

The program is expected to have $220,000 to award in 2024 for its general grant program, according to information provided to commissioners. That’s an increase of $10,000 due to donations received in memory of Kurt von Achen, a longtime Douglas County architect and planning commissioner. Additionally, the county expects to have $200,000 to award to projects that are focused on “open space conservation, access and knowledge sharing.”

The commission’s work session begins at 4 p.m. at the Douglas County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets. The regular meeting follows at 5:30 p.m. The meeting can be viewed via Zoom. The agenda packet can be found on the county’s website, www.douglascountyks.org.