Columbia City Council retreat in May cost more than double the price of 2023’s retreat
Mitchell Kaminski
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia City Council spent more than $42,000 on a two-day retreat in May with city staff in Camdenton.
Records obtained by ABC 17 News show the final bill is nearly 2.5 times higher than the 2023 retreat to Independence, Missouri, which cost $17,153.94.
The total cost of the trip to Camdenton was $42,606.85, with the bill including:
$25,000.00 for training costs
$9,839.57 meals
$5,955.64 for lodging
$1,811.64 mileage
These totals included $15,597.88 for two days at The Club at Old Kinderwood, which mainly covered the cost of banquet food and drinks.
City spokesperson Sydney Olsen said 37 people attended the retreat, which included all current council members, Mayor Barbara Buffaloe, Police Chief Jill Schlude, Fire Chief Brian Schafer, and City Manager De’Carlon Seewood.
“This is something that we started in 2022, and it was an opportunity for City Council members and city leadership to get together, get out of town and talk about both what’s going well, what’s happening in the community and then also the organization, as well as what’s on the horizon,” Buffaloe told ABC 17 News.
Seewood said that he has seen progress with how staff works together since starting these retreats.
“When I first became city manager, sometimes it felt like there was a lot of division between the council and you’re starting to see people really work more collaboratively together and there’s more relationship between staff and council to actually work on things as a team as opposed to this adversarial approach,” Seewood said.
According to Buffaloe, topics discussed at the retreat included preferred methods of communication between staff and constituents, as well as key challenges departments are facing ahead of the fiscal 2026 budget.
“I’ve seen a tremendous change since 2022 with the relationships built between staff and the councilmembers,” Buffaloe said when asked if the retreat was effective. “We need the professionals on staff to do the day-to-day work to help meet the goals of our community members.”
The biggest change in the retreat budget was a $25,000 fee to Raftelis for “training cost.” Records show the city paid Raftelis — which provides management consulting to help local governments — $15,000 for its May retreat. The city spent just $5,000 on Raftelis during its 2023 retreat.
“Just like any corporation, doing leadership retreats are important and you see that happening across the nation,” Buffaloe said. “I view that local government needs to also follow those same practices.”
Despite the hefty price tag, Seewood believes these types of retreats have contributed to the progress the city has made over the last two years.
“One of the things you want to do is you want to make sure that your executive team, your board members, all are working for the best interest of the community,” Seewood said. “Having those times away where you can actually sit down, have a consultant kind of help, you kind of talk about goals, talk about objectives, talk about priorities to make sure that you can move in the right direction.”