photo by: Journal-World graphic

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., and the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St.

The city’s interest in consolidating city and county governments has created some tension between the two governing bodies, but Lawrence city commissioners plan to continue the conversation.

Lawrence city commissioners raised the topic with Douglas County commissioners during a joint meeting last month, but county commissioners said they were not interested in the possibility and that they didn’t think county residents who live outside Lawrence would support it. City commissioners, though, would like the two governing bodies to have an informed conversation about the pros and cons of unification and how it might benefit all local taxpayers.

Mayor Stuart Boley said he thinks it would be good for local leaders to learn about how unification might work, and whether combining governments would provide economies of scale. He said that right now, he doesn’t know enough to say whether he’d recommend unification or not, but that he wants to have a conversation.

“I would just like to stress that we aren’t saying we should unify,” Boley said. “What we are saying is we need to learn and we need to have conversations. I’m striving to understand why the idea of learning and having conversations is basically unacceptable.”

There are about 40 cites nationwide that have consolidated with their respective counties, including Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco, according to the National League of Cities. There are two such examples in Kansas: Kansas City and Wyandotte County and Tribune and Greeley County. However, in the majority of cases, voters have voted against consolidation.

Earlier this month, city commissioners agreed to have further research done regarding a unified city-county government. City Manager Tom Markus suggested the city ask the University of Kansas School of Public Affairs & Administration to study the possibility, and Markus said the city has since sent a letter to KU. The day after that conversation, though, county commissioners restated that they were not interested in the idea of unification, and would rather focus on the existing shared service agreements between the city and county.

Combined city-county services

The city and county already partner to fund several services, including the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Department, Planning and Development Services and the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department. Lawrence residents pay taxes to both the city and county, and the city has asked that those agreements be re-examined out of concerns that city taxpayers are paying more than their share for some services.

County Commission Chair Nancy Thellman said that if the city’s primary concern is whether everyone is being taxed fairly, then she would rather focus her energy on the existing funding agreements than discuss what she sees as the unlikely possibility of unification.

“We would like to begin to address those issues now rather than spend time and energy and resources on a process that’s likely to fail because the rural population has veto power over that election,” Thellman said. “We can get right to the heart of some of those issues now, by working with the city on our collaborative agreements.”

In addition to concerns about the existing agreements between the city and the county, Boley pointed out duplicated services and said he believes communities that deploy their resources most effectively will be the most successful. Boley noted that currently the city and county both have their own law enforcement agencies, administrators, financial desks, human resources and other back office positions.

Like Boley, City Commissioner Leslie Soden said she is interested in how unification could allow the city and county to share more functions and increase efficiency. She said that the governing bodies should explore the possibility for the sake of their taxpayers.

“When it comes to taxes, the average citizen isn’t going to say the city takes out this much and the county takes out that much,” Soden said. “It doesn’t matter, it’s taxes that they pay, so I think we owe it to taxpayers to always try to find efficiencies whenever we can.”

Regarding consolidation of staff, Soden said she wasn’t interested in laying people off at the city or the county and that attrition would play a big role.

But Thellman said unification may not be the “silver bullet” city leaders make it out to be. For instance, she thinks salaries for unified government positions would need to increase.

“I think oftentimes, the efficiencies, the economies of scale are less impressive than are thought,” Thellman said. “I think the number of positions that are eliminated are often less than they anticipated. When salaries and benefits are leveled up, a lot of times savings are lost.”

Potential referendum

If the city and county were to merge, it would likely be a yearslong process to study and approve the consolidation.

Few states have provisions in general law for city-county consolidation, according to the National League of Cities. In most places, a majority of residents must pass a referendum before it can be approved by the state legislature.

Articles created under Kansas law for the consolidation of Kansas City and Wyandotte County required a majority of voters in Wyandotte County to approve the formation of a governor-appointed commission. The commission had to conduct a study on the costs and benefits of consolidation, hold public hearings and create a consolidation plan that then had to be approved by the Legislature and a majority of county voters, according to the articles.

Unified city and county governments can be structured several ways, and unified governments do not necessarily mean rural areas or residents living in smaller cities within the county would not be represented.

The most common form of consolidated government is a single chief executive and a multi-district council with a few at-large seats, according to the National League of Cities. The league states that small municipalities often continue to operate alongside the unified government. In Lawrence, though, there has not yet been detailed discussion about the structure the unified government might take.

Thellman said she thinks county commissioners would be interested in the conversation if research showed that consolidation could ultimately save Lawrence and Douglas County taxpayers money. However, Thellman said that while everyone should be open-minded, they also should be practical. She said even if there were some tax benefits, she didn’t think non-Lawrence residents would be willing to vote for unification because they would be concerned about losing local control.

“The politics of it are very, very difficult because that’s the most local form of government there is,” Thellman said. “The townships and the unincorporated area are, I think, underappreciated in our county, and the strength of their conviction about their own local governments.”

More discussion

In addition to becoming more efficient, Boley said that one of the likely benefits of unification would be increased transparency. For instance, he noted that the city streams video recordings of all of its meetings live and archives them all on YouTube, while the county’s practice is to make audio recordings of its meetings available upon request. Both Boley and Soden said conducting research to inform the discussion was a good idea.

Soden said she thinks having a third party, like KU, study the issue will be a valuable perspective for the governing bodies and administrators. She said rather than just hearing that it’s a bad idea, she wants to have a real conversation about a possible unification.

“I want to understand all of the pros and cons to it, because I’m sure there are cons,” Soden said. “And I know there are benefits, but we can’t really have a serious discussion about it unless we all have the gumption to just say, ‘Let’s weigh the pros and cons and see what we come up with.'”