photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Douglas County Commission meeting room is pictured on Thursday, July 3, 2025.

Douglas County commissioners are set to hold a final public hearing on Wednesday before adopting a more than $180 million operating budget for 2026 that comes with a property tax rate that is slightly lowered from a year ago.

Commissioners will conduct a public hearing on the proposed budget as part of their weekly meeting before making the final decision on the 2026 budget. If approved, the property tax rate – or mill levy – will be at 40.669 mills, a decrease of 0.629 mills from last year’s, which was 41.298 mills. One mill is equal to $1 per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

With the mill levy at 40.669 mills, a homeowner with a $600,000 home would pay $2,806 in property taxes to the county. A $300,000 property would have a bill of $1,403, and a $200,000 home would incur $935 in taxes.

Property tax rates are just one part of the equation that produces county residents’ property tax bill. The other part is the assessed value of someone’s property. If the assessed valuation of the property goes up, people may still be paying more, even if the property tax rate decreases. The total assessed property valuation in Douglas County increased by 5.7% in 2025, compared to 6.8% in the previous year.

There were several significant funding decisions commissioners considered for the 2026 budget, including:

• Allocating $1.5 million in additional funding to Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical to maintain emergency service levels after the City of Lawrence has asked the department to make cuts. The funding is also to add a new ambulance operating 40 hours a week to support the development of new fire station, known as “Station 6.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Interim CEO of Bert Nash Kirsten Watkins is pictured at the Douglas County budget hearings on Monday, July 7, 2025.

• Multiple funding allocations have been designated to support behavioral health services. Commissioners have earmarked $1 million in contingency funds for operations within the mental health crisis system. Although this funding was initially intended to cover rising costs at the Treatment & Recovery Center, it may also be directed toward other organizations in need of crisis care support.

Additionally, commissioners have set aside $500,000 in one-time funding to support Bert Nash’s financial solvency. Commissioners are also planning to allocate $300,000 in solvency funds for an “emergency situation,” such as keeping HeadQuarters afloat.

These funding allocations are included in the commissioners’ 2026 budget, though they may or may not be utilized.

• Two initiatives outlined in the anti-poverty area of the Community Health Improvement Plan, which are $100,000 for community child care scholarships and $62,500 for youth pre-apprenticeships with Peaslee Tech.

• Reducing KU Innovation Park funding by $60,000 for 2026, with commissioners arguing that some businesses have stayed many years and aren’t paying taxes, as the Journal-World reported.

According to a memo to commissioners, if the mill levy is approved on Wednesday, the maximum amount the county could spend as part of its operating budget next year is $184 million. However, this isn’t necessarily the amount the county is planning to spend since it includes reserve funds that may or may not be used throughout the year. The county is also expected to collect $89.8 million in property tax revenue in 2026. Last year, county commissioners approved a maximum amount of $194 million in expenditures.

While property taxes aren’t the county’s only source of revenue — sales taxes and various fees are other examples of county revenues — the county is expected to collect $89.8 million in tax revenue for the 2026 budget. For the 2025 budget, it collected $86.4 million in property taxes. The increase in property tax collections for the 2026 budget is due to the increase in property values.

The county budget up for approval covers a broad range of county activities ranging from the county’s ambulance operations to road and bridge maintenance to employee benefit accounts. The largest portion of the budget is for general day-to-day operation expenses, known as the general fund. Spending in the county’s general fund is projected to increase by 1.8% if commissioners approve the budget on Wednesday. In 2026, general fund spending is expected to reach around $93.6 million, up from an estimated $91.9 million this year.

The mill levy commissioners decided on at the end of budget deliberations is slightly lower than what county staff originally proposed, but it still exceeds the “revenue neutral rate” — the rate needed to generate the same amount of property tax revenue as the previous year, based on current assessed property values. The revenue neutral rate is 38.958 mills, which is 1.71 mills lower than the rate commissioners are scheduled to approve on Wednesday.

In addition, county commissioners will consider a budget increase to Consolidated Fire District No. 1. The proposed budget includes approximately $2.5 million with a half-mill increase for a total mill levy of 6 mills. The fire district serves a 228-square-mile area in Douglas County and is seeking the extra money to add more staff, cover rising maintenance costs and build up its savings, as the Journal-World reported.

The mill levy commissioners will be considering on Wednesday for CFD1 also exceeds the revenue neutral rate for 2026, which is 5.190 mills.

Public hearings about the revenue neutral rate will be held in conjunction with the public hearings on the county budget and the CFD1 budget for 2026 during the County Commission’s business meeting on Wednesday.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners met for deliberations on the 2026 budget on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.

In other business, county commissioners will:

• Consider approving an $80,255 reimbursement request from HeadQuarters Kansas for 2023 crisis line services. Funding was previously paused in the second quarter of 2023 after county staff raised questions about how call center staff was being deployed and how the invoices reflected actual staff costs versus budgeted FTEs. Later, the county withheld payment as HeadQuarters experienced more significant leadership, management and governance challenges.

County staff have since reviewed supporting documents and confirmed the request aligns with the 2023 agreement. Douglas County has no service agreements with the organization for 2024 or 2025, and no funding requests from the organization were allocated in the 2026 budget.

The County Commission’s regular business meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the Douglas County Commission meeting room at 1100 Massachusetts St. The meeting will also be available on Zoom.