photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Lawrence Community Shelter Board of Directors met at the Community Health Building, 200 Maine St., on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.

Douglas County’s funding support for the Lawrence Community Shelter in 2024 will be unchanged compared to 2023.

On Thursday, the LCS Board of Directors approved a service agreement with the county for the next year outlining the provisions for the $296,000 in funding support the county provides annually. That amount was reflected in the county’s 2024 budget, which was adopted in late August.

Assistant Douglas County Administrator Jill Jolicoeur told the group it’s the second time the county is formatting its funding support for the shelter in an agreement like this, which asks agencies to request reimbursements on a monthly basis rather than front-loading the funding.

“It’s been a great format for us to utilize, just to get a little more accountability out of some of our partner agencies,” Jolicoeur said. “That doesn’t mean that agencies have not been accountable — it’s just a better way to document how they’re utilizing the funds.”

But it’s also the first year that LCS is operating with a vastly expanded range of services compared to years past. That includes not just maintaining a higher night-by-night bed capacity but also acting as operator for projects like “The Village,” the community of 64-square-foot Pallet cabins for people experiencing homelessness at 256 N. Michigan St.

That all coincides with an expedited hiring process for the shelter’s new director, James Chiselom, whose appointment was announced just before Christmas. Chiselom joined the meeting via Zoom, the night before his first day of work at LCS, and offered feedback briefly at a couple of points during the board’s discussions.

The shelter’s heightened responsibilities are reflected in its 2024 budget, which the board approved at its last meeting prior to the holidays. The $3.43 million budget is more than than twice as large as the roughly $1.6 million per year that outgoing LCS Interim Executive Director Melanie Valdez previously told the Journal-World it takes to keep the shelter running.

The City of Lawrence is shouldering much of that cost; days before the shelter’s board approved the budget, the Lawrence City Commission approved a nearly $2.7 million funding agreement with LCS for 2024.

But you won’t find two of the shelter’s services mentioned in the county’s agreement — namely, operating The Village and facilitating winter emergency sheltering at LCS. Those are city-specific commitments, Jolicoeur said. Otherwise, both the city and county agreements look largely the same in terms of their scope of work requirements, save for a provision from the county asking the shelter to maintain three beds dedicated to individuals referred through the county’s Reentry Program after leaving the Douglas County Jail.

“The way I interpret (the agreement) is, especially as it relates to the Lawrence Community Shelter … the expectation is that you’re not going to use county funds to operate the Pallet village,” Jolicoeur said. “Winter shelter is a little mushier, but for all intents and purposes, you’re keeping our funding dedicated to the things that are outlined in that scope of services.”

Chiselom told the group he’s approved many agreements like this one in the past, but he wanted to get a look at the shelter’s entire budget before he decided how best to allocate the money from the county.