photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Lawrence City Commission listens to a presentation during its Tuesday, July 18, 2023 meeting.

As work on the City of Lawrence’s 2024 budget continues, city leaders have moved to propose a property tax rate of 33.207 mills — now officially the maximum levy they’re allowed to set in the final version of the budget.

At Tuesday’s Lawrence City Commission meeting, the commission voted unanimously to stick with the property tax rate presented with City Manager Craig Owens’ recommended budget earlier this month. That rate is flat compared with the 2023 budget, but the city is expected to collect about $3.58 million more in property taxes next year due to a growing tax base.

But that property tax rate is 2.5 mills higher than the “revenue neutral rate,” the tax rate that would keep property tax revenues steady compared to a year ago. The City Commission is required to inform the Douglas County Clerk’s Office of its plans to exceed that rate, which was part of its vote Tuesday night.

“I appreciate the work,” Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said. “Clearly, this is the next step in the process we have to move this forward, and certainly continue to support the work we’re working on to finalize the budget.”

The vote from city leaders also means that they’ll take part in one public hearing about exceeding the revenue neutral rate and another about the budget as a whole at their Tuesday, Aug. 22 meeting. From here, the mill levy rate can still be reduced from 33.207 mills but can’t be increased.

Commissioners also learned of one new recommendation in the proposed budget since it was presented at last week’s meeting, related to the more than $228,000 the city has collected from the state’s Opioid Addiction Fund. City staff is recommending allocating $100,000 of that amount toward purchasing doses of the overdose reversal drug naloxone in 2023. Discussion about how to use the remaining roughly $118,000 in 2024 would take place later this fall.