The City of Lawrence, Douglas County, and Lawrence Community Shelter are committed to addressing the growing homelessness crisis in our community. The City and County’s recent affordable housing and homelessness strategic plan, A Place for Everyone, identifies the need for increased capacity and improved outcomes in emergency sheltering.

The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) has selected Douglas County and the City of Lawrence as one of 14 jurisdictions nationwide to participate in their 2023-2024 Alternative 911 Emergency Response Implementation Cohort.  It’s an initiative designed to support city and county leaders in developing, improving and expanding unarmed alternative responses to 911 calls.

For the first time, Douglas County Public Works recently used goats to control weeds and woody vegetation on a steep slope at Wells Overlook Park where native grass had been planted and was struggling to get sunlight.

Since the slope is too steep for mowing and unsafe for hand cutting by employees, Public Works hired a company called “Goats On The Go” for the 0.9-acre site. The goat wrangler installed a temporary fence, dropped off approximately 50 goats, provided a water trough and checked on the goats daily. It took them 10 days to complete their task.

Douglas County District Court has received a grant from the National Center for State Courts’ (NCSC) Eviction Diversion Initiative to strengthen eviction diversion efforts and improve housing stability across Douglas County. It is one of 10 state and local courts selected through a competitive application process and review by an advisory council composed of state court chief justices and court administrators. 

The Kansas Department of Revenue is scheduled to begin replacing a router at noon Thursday, August 17. It is anticipated to last 30 minutes, but could take up to two hours. No motor vehicle transactions can be processed during this time at the Douglas County Treasurer’s main and satellite offices.

Tax payments for real estate and personal property can still be accepted during the outage. If you have questions for the Treasurer’s Office, please call 785-832-5273. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Douglas County is seeking residents’ input about how open spaces could be preserved and used in ways that benefit the community into the future. Their input will be used to help establish a Douglas County Open Space Plan. The plan will be a broad policy guide toward prioritizing a range of ecosystems and land uses such as prairie, floodplain, agriculture, historic sites, trails and more.

The community can provide information by:

The Douglas County Clerk’s Office will be sending 45,990 notices to property owners on Friday, Aug. 11. It is not a bill.

The notification is for information purposes only. It includes estimated property taxes for 2023 and a list of public hearings that affect the owner’s taxes. A list of all public hearings can be found on the Douglas County website.

The Douglas County Elections Office has posted the unofficial results for the primary election. The canvass will be at 9 a.m. Aug. 14 at the Elections Office, 711 W. 23rd St. Suite 1.

For results: http://dgcoks.org/primaryresults2023

Today, Douglas County released a digital report, “Rising to the Challenge: New Directions for Behavioral Health in Douglas County,” that outlines programs and services that have been implemented during the past five years. These services include a mobile crisis team, a Treatment and Recovery campus and an array of post-crisis community support services.

Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez today announced that Isaiah J. Duckworth, 36, of Lawrence, was sentenced to 79 months in the Kansas Department of Corrections for the aggravated sexual battery of a teen.

Judge Sally D. Pokorny sentenced Duckworth to 47 months on the first count, and 32 months on the second count. Judge Pokorny ordered the sentences to run consecutively.

Duckworth was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual battery on June 6, 2023, when he pleaded no contest at the beginning of his jury trial. 

The Board of County Commissioners reached a tentative agreement on July 12 on an approximately $190.7 million budget for 2024. They agreed on a mill levy of 44.219 mills, which is a decrease of two mills from 2023. One mill is one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value.

The 2024 budget included growth in property values (assessed valuation) of 10.98%.  This higher than traditional rate of growth allowed the Commission to reduce the mill levy by $3.8 million in the general fund.  The 2024 budget does not eliminate any current county services. 

In the general fund — the largest and most general purpose of the County’s budgeted funds — approximately 77% of Douglas County’s revenues are from ad valorem taxes and 10% are from sales taxes. Total assessed valuation for real estate and personal property increased 10.98% in 2022 compared to 12.44% the year before. During the past two years, the assessed valuation growth rate has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic stimulus, leading to fluctuation in the normal rate of growth seen in Douglas County.