photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Douglas County commissioners met with Lawrence Douglas County Fire Medical during a work session to discuss the department's 2026 budget on Wednesday, May 28, 2025.

While the final decisions haven’t been made yet on how Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical will handle city funding cuts, Douglas County commissioners said Wednesday that a reduction in emergency medical services shouldn’t be on the table.

“A reduction in services is not really an acceptable answer to me, and specifically EMS services, since that’s what the county is responsible for,” Commissioner Shannon Reid said.

In April, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical told commissioners about potential scenarios for its budget after the City of Lawrence told it to find over $1.5 million in cuts, and on Wednesday, the department briefed the commission on a few more possibilities.

Of the two scenarios the department went over in April, one — known as “Option 1” — would involve the county providing at least $1.5 million in additional funding for LDCFM, which county leaders anticipate would require a tax increase. The other scenario, “Option 2,” would not involve the county providing extra money, but would require 18 full-time-equivalent positions to be cut. It would reduce LDCFM’s number of battalion chiefs from six to three, eliminate the prevention lieutenant and training lieutenant positions and convert an existing ambulance from 24/7 to 40 hours a week.

County commissioners heard again on Wednesday that if the city and county continue with their current cost-sharing arrangement – where the city funds 64% of LDCFM’s operations and the county funds 36% – there will be a significant reduction in services. But, the department also provided some options that wouldn’t require the commission to provide as much extra funding as in Option 1, but wouldn’t disrupt county-level EMS and ambulance services as much as Option 2.

The first of the alternatives, LDCFM said, would require the county to provide $1,163,070 in additional funding. This option would result in the department maintaining six battalion chiefs and the training lieutenant and would “add one expansion ambulance (Medic 6),” and the department would lose two full-time-equivalent employees as opposed to 18.

Another option would require $183,758 in additional funding from the county. While this would still result in 10 full-time-equivalent positions being cut, it would maintain all current ambulances as 24/7 trucks and keep all six of the battalion chiefs.

And yet another option would maintain all the current ambulances as 24/7 trucks but would require 14 full-time-equivalent positions being cut. This one would not require any increase in county spending.

The presentation was during a work session on Wednesday, and commissioners did not take action on any of these options. But Commissioner Karen Willey said that the need for services from LDCFM is strong.

“Not only for maintaining (the) EMS response that we have, but increasing that in the near term,” Willey said. “… I would have a hard time justifying taking away medical response resources.”

Willey added that the County Commission will have its own opinion on what best suits the county, but these decisions will also affect the city, which has its own needs.

“That’s the other complicating factor for deciding what we are willing to pay for and what we want to see happen,” Willey said. “Best-case scenario for us may not be supported by the city.”

photo by: Screenshot

Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical offered three new options for Douglas County to consider on how to handle cuts tasked by the city ahead of the 2026 budget season.

In other business, county commissioners:

• Approved a request to rezone land at Burning Barrel Farm – an agritourism property – from AG-1, Agricultural, to AG-2, Transitional Agriculture. The property owner wished to live near the agritourism operation and intends to divide the land into two separate parcels. The AG-2 zoning permits the creation of a 10-acre residential parcel and a separate 20-acre parcel designated for agritourism and farming activities, according to a memo in the agenda.

• Waived the formal bid process to repair the fire suppression system water line at the historic Douglas County Courthouse with SAMCO Mechanical in an amount not to exceed $235,000. County staff became aware of a water line leak to the west of the courthouse on Massachusetts Street last week after a 25-year-old pipe leaked.

A memo in the agenda states that there wasn’t yet a final cost estimate at the time the agenda was compiled. Staff anticipates the final cost will be below $200,000, but the county administration will provide updates to the County Commission once final costs are submitted.

• Approved requests for property tax relief on two properties that were damaged by fire. One fire caused $5 million in damage to part of the Brandon Woods senior living facility; the other caused $750,000 in damage to a home. Both fires resulted in damage exceeding 50% of each building’s pre-disaster value.

• Appointed Brad Eldridge to a four-year term as the county appraiser from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2029. Eldridge was first appointed to complete the term of Steve Miles in mid-2023 after he retired from the position.

• Approved a contract with Little Government Relations at $60,000 per year, which is renewable annually up to five years, bringing the potential total contract value to $300,000.