photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Lawrence City Manager Craig Owens speaks about his recommended 2024 city budget during the Lawrence City Commission's Tuesday, July 11, 2023 meeting.

There’s still work yet to be done in the process of approving the City of Lawrence’s 2024 budget, but early feedback from city leaders on Tuesday seemed to indicate that they’re pleased with where things stand early on.

As the Journal-World reported, City Manager Craig Owens’ recommended 2024 budget earmarks $7.5 million for additional employee compensation and benefits and $2 million for the creation of an entirely new city department: the Homeless Programs Department. The budget includes $471 million in expenditures and is being presented with a flat property tax rate of 33.207 mills.

Commissioner Amber Sellers was absent from Tuesday’s Lawrence City Commission meeting, when Owens presented the proposed budget to city leaders, but her colleagues all voiced their relief that the proposed budget is “structurally balanced” — its expenditures don’t outpace its revenues.

“Having a structurally imbalanced budget the past couple of years, I know it’s been harder on (city staff) than us, but it’s been something that we’ve been worried about,” Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said. “… To get to a point where we’re going to solve that is impressive.”

Members of the public, meanwhile, had varying thoughts on the budget, with some offering praise and others flagging areas where they felt it was lacking. Among the concerns shared by commenters like Kristin Eldridge were the need to address Lawrence’s housing crisis and opportunities for economic growth.

“I feel like we’re at a critical point where we’re currently at risk of being an ‘exclusive community,’ where it’s only people with a certain income that can live here,” Eldridge said. “It’s making things difficult for people that already live here. I want those people to come here and raise their families and start a business like I did.”

But Eldridge also said she is pleased with Owens’ proposed five-year Capital Improvement Plan being considered in tandem with the budget, which she said includes a number of projects that will aid in the city’s future development and expansion.

Mark Buhler, a former Douglas County commissioner and state senator, also voiced some appreciation for the city’s commitment to expected growth during Tuesday’s meeting.

Eldridge wasn’t the only commenter who stressed the need for a commitment to more housing in the budget — so, too, did commenters like Rob Richardson with the Economic Development Corporation of Lawrence, who said he supported a “robust” housing policy.

Next week, commissioners will make a decision about whether or not they plan to exceed the “revenue neutral rate” — the property tax rate that would keep property tax revenues stable compared to a year ago. Sticking to the revenue neutral rate would mean reducing the property tax rate by 2.5 mills, equivalent to about a $71 reduction in city property taxes on a $250,000 home.

In other business, the commission:

* Opened a public hearing on a request to establish a Neighborhood Revitalization Area and authorize Industrial Revenue Bond financing for a project at 700 New Hampshire St. and deferred continuing it until the commission’s Aug. 1 meeting.

The hearing is related to efforts by a group led by Lawrence businessman Doug Compton to convert the building — previously the site of the old Borders bookstore at Seventh and New Hampshire streets — into a corporate headquarters for Compton’s two companies, First Management and First Construction.

That redevelopment had stalled, as the Journal-World reported, as Compton sought an incentives package through the city’s Neighborhood Revitalization Act — a 90%, 15-year tax rebate — and bond financing to provide access to a sales tax exemption on project construction materials.