photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on Jan. 31, 2023.

Leaders with the City of Lawrence and Douglas County are set to meet in a joint session next week to discuss the possible expansion of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, which could come with a more than $50 million price tag.

The Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission will have the special meeting Monday evening. The two bodies typically have a joint meeting once per year; last year, the topic was affordable housing. No action will be taken at next week’s meeting, but the joint commission will discuss ways to collaborate moving forward.

According to the meeting agenda, city and county leaders will be hearing about a couple of recommendations for expansion from LDCFM. The agency has been monitoring its response data and, in light of continued growth since its last expansion in Lawrence in 2006, has identified a need to expand to cover service gaps.

The first — and most expensive — of the options would be to add two new stations and relocate one of its existing ones. Currently, five stations are located in Lawrence, and another two EMS stations are located in Eudora and Baldwin City. That option would result in $52.5 million in one-time expenses, with the city covering $34.4 million and the county covering $18.1 million, plus $6.8 million in ongoing expenses. The city would also front the majority of the cost of ongoing expenses at around $4.35 million.

That breaks down to about $22 million per new station, between the various costs associated with building, purchasing medic units and fire trucks and the ongoing expenses required to fully staff them.

Under that scenario, the two expansion stations would be added in West Lawrence and at the southern edge of the city limits. The relocated station, the one currently near the intersection of Sixth Street and Kasold Drive, would be moved from its current home to north central Lawrence.

photo by: City of Lawrence

This map, included with the agenda for the Monday, May 15, 2023 joint City of Lawrence and Douglas County Commission meeting, shows where new Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical stations could be located if the department expands in the future.

A second, less expensive option would be to relocate a single station, thereby allowing LDCFM to reconfigure its deployment and pay only for the cost of a new building. That option wouldn’t include any additional ongoing expenses, just a one-time cost of $15.5 million. The majority of the split in that case would again be covered by the city — just south of $10 million. The county would handle the remaining roughly $5.5 million.

In both cases, according to the agenda, it’s anticipated that those costs would be covered by additional property taxes. There’s no projected mill levy impact included on the agenda, though. Those figures are supposed to be presented verbally at Monday’s meeting.

LDCFM is expected to ask if there’s an interest in the expansion being added to the election ballot for November, rather than one of those two options just being approved unilaterally by city and county leadership. That would add the cost of an education campaign and staff time to the total expense, and the City Commission would need to pass a resolution in a public meeting and submit ballot language to the Douglas County Clerk’s Office no later than Sept. 1.

The joint City and County Commission meeting will be at 5 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.