photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Acting Fire Chief Joe Hardy speaks to the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday, March 10, 2026.

Lawrence city commissioners all agree that they want a new fire station in northwest Lawrence – but they don’t yet agree on a proposed property tax increase to fund the expansion.

On Tuesday, the City Commission had its first chance to discuss city staff’s 2027 budget proposal, which among other things would raise the property tax rate by 3 mills to help fund operations for the future Fire Station 6. The commission won’t be making any decisions on the budget for months, but city staff wants to start the conversation now, including getting feedback from the community from the city’s online budget simulator tool.

City Manager Craig Owens said the discussions this year will entail the commission “making some very hard decisions and confronting the community who are wanting more (services), not less.” And Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Acting Chief Joe Hardy said that service levels for the fire department were an urgent need.

Fire Station 6, now planned to be at 555 Stoneridge Drive, is meant to address a gap in services on the northwest side of town, a need that Hardy said has been around since the 1990s. He said the demand for services there “is higher and higher” and will be increasing even further as the city annexes more land in that area.

While the station, which is expected to be online in 2029, is funded in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, its staffing needs and operating costs are not funded, and it’s those needs that the department wants to take care of in the 2027 budget. The expansion is expected to require three battalion chiefs, a training lieutenant, 23 full-time equivalent positions to staff a medic unit and a fire engine, and two internal services positions, and the city will need to come up with about $4.5 million in funding for the operational expansion.

City staff said Tuesday the 3-mill increase was proposed with the $4.5 million amount in mind, and that it would amount to a roughly $104 increase in property taxes on a $300,000 home. Some commissioners already were voicing opinions about increasing the mill levy to generate that money.

“I am in support of Station 6 expansion, but I am not in support of a mill levy increase,” Commissioner Kristine Polian said.

Commissioner Mike Dever wondered about some combination of budget cuts and mill levy increases, rather than one or the other, and Vice Mayor Mike Courtney wanted to know what things would look like if the city kept its budget “revenue neutral,” meaning that the city expected to collect the same amount in taxes as in the previous year.

“Just know those different options, so when we’re out in front of the community having these discussions, we’ll know, ‘what are the cuts, what does this look like,'” Courtney said.

Mayor Brad Finkeldei, meanwhile, said that, other things being equal, “Fire Station 6 is important enough that I would support a mill increase” for it.

The commission has had tough conversations about LDCFM’s funding before. During the 2025 and 2026 budget processes, there were proposals to reduce the minimum daily staffing requirement for the fire department, which critics said would jeopardize public safety.

In the past few years, Finkeldei said, “I think we’ve cut a lot” in many different areas of city operations. He listed off places he didn’t want to cut further: roads, Parks and Rec, police, fire.

“For me, most everything’s off the table,” Finkeldei said. “I don’t know what’s still on the table for me.”

Members of the public will soon be able to weigh in on what they prefer. The city’s budget simulator tool, “A Balancing Act,” will be going online this week, and users will be able to create their own version of the budget that shows what services they would retain or cut. Those results will be shared with the commission in April to inform its discussions.

Also on Tuesday, the commission signaled that it wanted to move forward with the process of a sales tax ballot question in November to fund transit operations.

The city’s current 0.2% transit sales tax was put in place after a public vote in 2008 and reaffirmed in another public vote in 2018, and it is due to sunset in 2029. City staff is proposing asking the public to raise it to 0.3%. The transit department says this is necessary to “match rising national transit costs,” and that the increase would let the city retain its current fare-free bus service until 2029 and continue its work on a downtown bus station.

“I think we need to move forward to put something on the ballot,” Finkeldei said.

The city’s budget process will be going on for the next several months, including more detailed discussions of the CIP and budget in June and July. Public hearings and final approval of the budget are expected in September.

In other business, the commission:

• Made an official proclamation to recognize the Algerian National Team, which Lawrence will be hosting in this summer’s FIFA World Cup.

Ruth DeWitt of Explore Lawrence said that Algeria had a national team within just a few years of its independence in the 1960s. “Soccer is not just a game to this team, it is a national identity,” DeWitt said.

At the end of the proclamation, Finkeldei had a message to the team and its fans: “We are proud to host you, we are proud to support you and we welcome you to Lawrence.”

Each commissioner also received a scarf with the logo of the city’s World Cup preparation effort on Tuesday. “Please wear them in the community proudly,” DeWitt told them.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Lawrence City Commission poses with football scarves for the 2026 World Cup on Tuesday, March 10, 2026.