photo by: Screenshot/City of Lawrence

From left, City Commissioners Brad Finkeldei, Mike Dever and Mayor Bart Littlejohn prepare to vote on the Lawrence city budget for 2025 on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.

The Lawrence City Commission approved the 2025 budget for the city on Tuesday night, keeping a neutral mill rate by dipping into the general fund balance to cover additional expenses.

The commission voted 3-2 to pass the $518.7 million budget for next year. Mayor Bart Littlejohn, Vice Mayor Mike Dever and Commissioner Brad Finkeldei voted yes, while commissioners Lisa Larsen and Amber Sellers voted no.

This budget would set the city’s mill rate at 33.197 — about the same as last year’s rate of 33.207, a dramatic change from the initial proposal in July which wold have raised the mill levy by 3.6 mills — about a $120-per-year increase in city property taxes for the owner of a $300,000 home.

The revisions came after the commission’s Aug. 20 public hearing on the budget, at which dozens of public commenters spoke out against the potential tax burden of the initial plan and city commissioners made some recommendations to address those concerns.

One of the major changes to lower the tax burden was using reserve funds in place of some of the tax revenue that would have been generated by a mill levy hike. The new 2025 budget calls for the city to spend $1.6 million of its general fund balance. According to city projections, that would put the city’s reserves at $22 million for 2025.

Alley Porter, a budget manager with the city finance department, said that by using that money from the fund balance, it would potentially fall below the 60-day minimum funding level the city uses to try to maintain its reserves during the 2026 budget cycle. The city generally aims to keep enough funding in reserves to cover at least 60 days of expenses, something that Porter reiterated to the City Commission during the presentation.

“The path that we are on, we can’t continue to rely on fund balance,” Porter said.

Commissioners acknowledged that budget reductions would need to be considered moving forward. Finkeldei said while he was happy to see the zero mill increase for this budget, he agreed using fund balance was not sustainable moving forward. Littlejohn said “hard discussions” would be needed in the future.

Larsen voted against the budget, saying that there needed to be more cuts to city programs.

Other key differences between the adopted 2025 budget and the initial version include postponing the allocation of money for the construction of two new fire stations by a year while restoring firefighter staffing to four people per truck, adding a deputy fire chief position, restoring some police positions that would have been cut and reducing a cost-of-living raise for city employees by 1% for non-union workers.

Sellers was not in support of decreasing the cost-of-living adjustments, and was hoping to have a conversation about amending that specific cut to see if there was support on her side. She ended up voting against the budget.

A couple of firefighters, who were vocal in opposition to the proposed changes to staffing set out in the initial budget proposal, spoke during public comment about the budget, thanking the commission for bringing back funding for the four-person-per-truck staffing. One firefighter said funding four-person staff levels was “a choice to keep citizens of Lawrence safer.”

Other aspects of the budget have changed since the initial July proposal, including authorizing the Parks and Recreation Department to use Special Recreation funds to repair or replace aging playground structures.

The initial budget would have removed funds set aside to improve or get rid of older playground structures. Four structures at Park Hill Park #1 and Chaparral Park were closed off with tape and “No Trespassing” or “Keep Out” signs, as the Journal-World previously reported. Three other parks could have had their structures go as well.

Now, playground replacements will be funded using reserve money from the city’s Special Recreation fund.

In other business, commissioners adopted the most recent version of the Standard Traffic Ordinance prepared by the League of Kansas Municipalities.

The ordinance, which was approved on first reading on Aug. 20, allows for the prosecution of most traffic offenses in municipal court. One change amends the current requirement that all fines, court costs and penalties be paid in full or considered a failure to comply with a traffic citation. Instead, it will allow the court to require a payment and give it the ability to waive or reduce fees, fines and court costs, as well as allow payment plans.

It further limits license reinstatement fees to a single fee of $100, rather than a separate fee of $100 for each charge associated with the citation with which the person did not comply. Finally, it requires the municipal court to consider alternative requirements in lieu of restriction or suspension of driving privileges, such as alcohol or drug treatment or community service.

Those changes will go into effect in the new year.