photo by: AdobeStock

A sign touts the creation of affordable homes in this AdobeStock image.

A mistake was made, and what ensued was not a great look for local government.,

Last week, the city of Lawrence’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board met to begin the process of awarding about $700,000 of taxpayer funds to affordable housing projects. Step. No. 1 of the process is to determine which applications the board will accept for consideration.

This is normally the no drama part of the process. But last week, as we reported, it produced a surprise. On a 4-3 split vote the board decided to not accept an application for funding from Douglas County government, despite the group having supported funding for the county project for the last two years.

Had the county project — called the Housing Stabilization Collaborative — changed for the worse? No, board members still expressed enthusiasm for the project that works to prevent housing evictions. Instead, the advisory board rejected the application for funding because county officials had inadvertently filed it a few days late.

The county is seeking $330,000 in funding, and probably is really counting on at least $150,000 in funding, which is the amount it received from the city during the most recent funding round. Of course, ultimately, helping people stay in their homes is what’s at stake. At this point, you may be looking for a direction to point your finger of blame.

Well, somebody in county government did miss a deadline, so that would be one direction. Count me out on that pointing exercise, though. The missed deadline, in a practical sense, doesn’t mean much. The local government on the north end of Massachusetts Street didn’t get some information as quickly as it would like from the local government on the south end of Massachusetts Street.

The application was seven days late, but importantly, the timing didn’t delay or hinder the board’s consideration in any meaningful way. The application was received on Sept. 11. The board didn’t meet to discuss the applications until Oct. 14. Yes, county officials should figure out why the application was filed late and work to ensure it doesn’t happen again. But anybody who has ever worked in an office understands the multitude of innocent reasons why a deadline might be missed. This deadline issue has a whiff of bureaucracy taking precedence over common sense.

OK, so let’s point at the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board members for refusing to accept the application. I understand the thought, but again, count me out. After all, I’m not the one who has to deal with the next group that misses an application deadline. I’m grateful that I’m not the one who has to do that. Advisory board members sit through a lot of long meetings with zero pay. As such, I try to avoid criticizing them. Plus, the board’s 4-3 vote indicates members had a thoughtful debate about the subject. That’s basically what you ask from an advisory board.

Sometimes in a situation like this, the best you can do is figure out who didn’t make the mistake. Here’s what I’m confident of: Taxpayers didn’t make the mistake. So, let’s make sure taxpayers don’t pay for it.

I worry they might. It seems likely that one future path on this issue is for the Affordable Housing Advisory Board to ask the City Commission to consider providing the stabilization program some special funding from another part of the city’s budget.

Think about how galling that would be to taxpayers. Since 2019 Lawrence taxpayers have voluntarily — through a citywide election — agreed to increase what they pay in sales taxes to support affordable housing efforts. They trust local government to make good decisions about how to use those tax dollars. Now, they hear that local government likes this housing stabilization program, but didn’t fund it over some administrative issue. Instead it wants to take money out of a different taxpayer pocket to fund it?

That’s a bad look for government. One of the most serious problems in America is the public’s lack of faith in government. Sometimes it is big issues that drive the perception. Other times, smaller issues like this add up.

Speaking of bad looks, it wasn’t great when the affordable housing board was told by a county staffer that the county does not have a “backup plan” for any lost funding. Well, the county’s financial statements do show the county ended 2025 with “unencumbered cash” — money available to be assigned to a project — of about $134 million. It is understandable the county thinks the city should help pay for this program — most of the housing is in Lawrence — but coming up with a way for the county to cover a one-year shortfall isn’t difficult.

While we are at it, here’s one more comment from the meeting that could rub a taxpayer the wrong way. A board member expressed frustration that the city doesn’t already have a separate line item in its operating budget to fund this housing stabilization program. The county, after all, includes it in its regular budget. The difference, though, is the county doesn’t have a special affordable housing sales tax. What would be frustrating is if the city talked Lawrence residents into approving a special sales tax for affordable housing and then chose to fund this affordable housing program in some other way.

But that may be what’s coming down the pike. Just find another way to pay for it. Just add it to the taxpayer’s bill. If so, that wouldn’t be a smart move on the part of local government. But it would be an instructive one.

It would give us all a close-up view of the mindset of why so much — housing included — has become so unaffordable.