Craig Owens bids farewell as Lawrence city manager leaves after long career

Craig Owens’ departure closes out a six-and-a-half-year run that put Lawrence’s budget, infrastructure and day-to-day city services at the center of a leadership transition. The city’s next manager will inherit an ongoing priority-based budget process, a Community Budget Committee that helped shape the 2026 budget, and a multi-year capital improvement plan already moving through the pipeline.

Owens started as Lawrence city manager on July 1, 2019, after 11 years as city manager in Clayton, Missouri. The City of Lawrence said in November that he would end his tenure in May 2026 after more than 30 years in local government, and his final week marked the handoff to Assistant City Manager Casey Toomay, who was set to serve as acting city manager while the city continued its search for a permanent replacement.

In his own account, Lawrence was not an easy assignment. Owens described the city as the “capstone” challenge of his career and said, “I came here for challenge, and I got it.” That line captured the broader reality of the job: Lawrence has forced city hall to balance growth pressures, long-range planning and public expectations while keeping core services steady.

The transition matters because the Lawrence City Commission hires the city manager and approves the budget, giving the next leader a direct role in the city’s fiscal direction. Lawrence has used priority-based budgeting in its annual process, a system meant to force harder choices about where public money goes. The city also created the Community Budget Committee to make recommendations on the 2026 budget, adding another layer of public input to decisions that affect everything from staffing to services residents rely on every day.

The capital planning side is just as significant. City records show an ongoing multi-year Capital Improvement Plan process, including a recommended 2026-2030 presentation dated June 17, 2025. That means the next manager will not start with a blank slate. The city will already be carrying forward decisions about projects, timing and spending that influence how Lawrence grows and how quickly it can respond to needs across the community.

Owens leaves with Lawrence still facing the same test that defined his tenure: how to manage a city with a strong identity, a crowded agenda and limited room for easy answers. For city hall, the question now is not only who takes the office next, but whether the next manager can keep those long-running decisions moving without losing public trust in the process.