Growth shapes Columbia city budget, leaders say at town hall

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia's geographic and demographic growth are helping to push city government expenditures higher, creating larger budgets, the city manager said at a budget town hall on Thursday.

The City of Columbia has been hosting a series of town hall meetings. The meeting Thursday was designed to engage residents in the budget process.

Columbia City Manager De'Carlon Seewood and Finance Director Matthew Lue gave a presentation breaking down the "how we got here" phase of the fiscal year 2027 budget.

According to Seewood and Lue, since 2000, Columbia's geographic area has increased by 15.8 square miles, which is 28%.

The presentation also included how costs have been outpacing the revenue due to things like:

• High inflation
• Supply chain issues
• Slow economy
• Unpredictable federal grant funding

Officials said these issues led to a decade of city pay issues that has drained knowledge and experience from city government.

Seewood said after the meeting that the budget sessions were a way to gauge public priorities.

"This what this was is really an opportunity to engage with residents, to find out exactly what our priorities are, and we build that budget around those priorities. And so what I will say is our budget is built upon what our residents are asking for," said Seewood.

Seewood and Lue said during the presentation that funds are restricted. The City of Columbia budget is made up of six different fund types, and each is unique.

The fund types are:

• General Fund: supports the administrative operations and essential services of local government
• Enterprise Fund: used to provide services to the public on a user-charged basis
• Internal Services Fund: used to account for goods and services provided by one department to another, on a cost reimbursement basis
• Special Revenue Fund: account for specific revenues that are legally restricted to particular purposes
• Capital Project Fund: account for the acquisition and construction of major capital facilities or improvements within the general government funds
• Debt Service Fund: accounts for the resources, financing, and expenditures related to long-term debt

Some attendees brought up Proposition 1, the public safety sales tax on the ballot Tuesday. Seewood and Lue made it clear that this budget does not include take into account funds the tax could bring in if approved.

If Prop 1 does pass, its estimated $38 million annually would add to the budget of the Columbia Police Department and Columbia Fire Department.