Lawrence council passes $28M budget for 2025 amid criticism

Lawrence’s tumultuous budgeting process for 2025 reached an anticlimactic ending Wednesday evening when councilors voted 7-0 to approve the $28 million budget with plans to revisit it in January.

The nine-member Lawrence Common Council is made up entirely of Democrats. Multiple members have previously criticized Democratic Mayor Deborah Whitfield’s interim controller, Humphrey Nagila, and expressed concerns that the proposed 2025 budget lacked funds for stormwater projects and gasoline for police vehicles, and left debt-service obligations unfunded. The budget also includes a $632,072 increase for the Mayor’s Office and new union contracts for police and firefighters.

A week earlier, Councilor Zach Cramer called the budget plan “neither balanced nor responsible” and said Nagila used “questionable tactics to obscure financial shortfalls.” Still the council voted to approve it, with Council President Betty Robinson citing time constraints and intentions to amend the budget later. The state requires that localities adopt a 2025 budget by Nov. 1.

In a statement after the vote, Whitfield thanked the council for “their patience and diligence” through the “challenges of the 2025 budget adoption process,” as well as Lawrence residents “for the trust they continue to place in [Whitfield] as mayor.” 

Discussion at the final budget meeting was slim, but members of the Whitfield administration and the Democrat-controlled council have previously criticized Nagila or expressed concerns about the budget for the upcoming year. Whitfield’s former Chief of Staff Zach Brown resigned Oct. 3, writing in an email to fellow members of the administration that his departure was “due to irreconcilable and substantive differences regarding good governance.”

Councilor Kristie Krone called on Whitfield to remove Nagila from his position at an Oct. 10 committee meeting, stating that Nagila “slowly responded to or outright dismissed questions and concerns” from the council. While voting in favor of moving the budget to the full council, she said it was not “a vote of good faith,” but focused on keeping the budget process moving.

In an email to IBJ Friday, Krone indicated that her feelings on Nagila and the budget haven’t changed.

“I didn’t come to the decision to give Mayor Whitfield a call to action about our controller lightly. I hope she was listening,” Krone wrote. She said that she thinks of herself, Whitfield and her fellow newly-elected councilors as “teammates,” and that includes a responsibility to hold each other accountable.

Chris Wilburn, director of the Department of Public Works, testified at the Oct. 10 meeting that Nagila failed to include funds for stormwater even though the department submitted a $1.5 million request. Instead, he said $1.3 million was cut from the department’s budget.

In response to criticism against Nagila, Whitfield told IBJ through a city spokesperson that she cannot comment on human resources matters. The mayor did not immediately respond to a question regarding whether she feels the interim controller is competent in his role.

Nagila did not return a call from IBJ seeking comment.

Former Lawrence Mayor Steve Collier’s administration hired Nagila and Whitfield kept him on staff after her election win in November 2024. A different budgeting issue took place during Collier’s administration, leading to a bitter legal battle between the Lawrence Common Council and the Mayor’s Office. Ultimately, the two parties reached a settlement.