Mitchell Kaminski
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia City Council unanimously approved its $608 million budget on Monday evening following months of planning and public hearings.
However, some feel that the process of presenting the budget could be improved.
A candidate from this past August’s Ward 2 council race, Ken Rice, raised concerns about the “lack of transparency” during the budget process, saying the way that it was presented was too difficult for the public to understand.
“They have a lot of meetings, but if you noticed, even the council members are getting frustrated with how things are,” Rice claimed. “A lot of it has a lot of accounting terms. They don’t go through the whole process. And I said, ‘You got to make it like a fifth-grade level.’ And it’s not it’s not easy to do. I’ve been doing budgeting for a lot of years, and I’m telling you, I was sitting there confused by the information that they put out.”
Ward 5 Councilman Don Waterman defended the city’s transparency during the budget process, saying the city held multiple public meetings and made the budget draft available for the public. However, he agreed that it should be easier for the general public to understand.
“The total budget with all capital outlays and everything else is over $600 million. So it’s going to be big printed out. It’s, I think, 400 and some odd pages,” Waterman said. “For me personally, and every cycle that I’ve been through, we’ve done this, is said, ‘You’ve got to understand you’re used to working with these phrases, this terminology, and kind of by virtue of a great deal of experience, understanding what goes where. The majority of the council we’re not accountants and many citizens that read this aren’t. We need to work on trying to make it where it’s more easily understandable.”
According to city documents, the total budget sits at around $608 million. There are also around $64 million in expected Capital Improvement Projects. According to previous reporting, Capital Improvement projects often fluctuate between budgets due to large one-year purchases.
In the General Fund for daily operations, the costs are in the red, with revenue expected to be around $132 million and expenses expected to be around $135 million. This came after expected tax revenue fell by around 3% last year. City plans also expect the budget to dip into the city’s available cash.
“It seemed like they [the budget office] did a good effort to try to keep it balanced from the beginning. Then we decided to go ahead and follow through with the raises to our workers, which put us a little bit into the red. Fortunately, we’ve got some of the cash reserves that we can take advantage of to do it. Yes, it’s not sustainable, but it’s something that we can do this year,” Waterman said. “We’re definitely monitoring it. And I think it’s legitimate that it be a concern.”
“It concerns me because that’s not how anything should run, whether it’s a business and people say, well, a city is in a business. I beg to differ. First of all, a good part of our income is a true business because the utilities is a true business,” Rice added. “I find it very disingenuous that they’re not talking at some point about saying ‘we need to raise taxes.
$5 million allocated to Fire Station 5
One of the biggest changes from the initial proposed budget was allocating $5 million to replace Fire Station 5, one of the city’s busiest and oldest fire stations. The station was built in 1971 and is the third-busiest station overall in the city. However, it was also built near a coal mine, which has caused the current building to subside.
“The current Station 5 is aged. It’s well over 50 years old. It doesn’t have the needs for the community 20 years ago, much less today for our workforce and the emerging growth that we’ve seen over the past 20 years in that area,” Columbia Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer said. “We’ve ran the different scenarios. Where it’s at is the best strategic location for us today and tomorrow, and that’s based on future road network, future growth and current situations, including traffic. So the challenge is we know that there used to be mines in that area.”
The deteriorating and sinking conditions of the station are taking a toll on firefighters, who have to spend time documenting and repairing the station.
There is no current timeline for how long it will take to build the station. Schaeffer says the city still wants to address any geological concerns before breaking ground on the new station.
“What we’ve been able to determine thus far is that the mines are not of consequence to the station itself, that it was mostly the road network that came through the back of the station that likely caused a subsidence,” Schaeffer said.
The plan is to build the new station in the same location, located on Ballenger Lane, but adjacent to the old station. The current fire station will still be used while the new station is being built.
The new fire station plans to have increased technology, auxiliary lighting, fire sprinklers, and individual dorms for firefighters, things that the current station lacks.
Other budget highlights
Other major changes in the budget include utilities, expected to see around 12% increase in funds, around $200 thousand, and capital seeing an almost 127% increase, around $1 million. Intragovernment costs also saw a decrease of around 20%, around $2 million.
General fund changes by departments stayed relatively similar from 2025. However, supporting activities, which manage community relations and facility management, are expected to have a 9% decrease, approximately $500,000.
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