The City of Lawrence’s total budget almost doubled in the last five years. It has increased from $260.9M in 2020 to $518.7M in 2025.
Our City has also taken on significantly larger amounts of debt over the last two years while simultaneously facing budget deficits.
In Aug 2024, the City approved a pool renovation plan that would have eliminated more than a quarter of the total water area in our pool. The Commission passed this plan because the Parks & Rec department and their consultants didn’t present substantial data from their community surveys showing that residents wanted a larger facility. (The good news is that our advocacy efforts saved the size of our pool!)
Read our summary about how community input was omitted and ignored through the planning process.
