CPS Finance Board approves next year’s budget
Met with unanimous agreement, the Columbia Public School District’s Finance Board approved the budget for the 2023-2024 school year Wednesday night.
Next on the budget’s list, facing the overall board on Monday night.
“There’s one pot of money,” CPS Chief Financial Officer Heather McArthur said. “We’re not always going to be able to add everything. We’re not able to do everything in one year or multi-years. There’s always going to have to be a prioritization process.”
The finance board’s discussion during the meeting lingered mostly on how to use the money devoted to salaries. Columbia Public School's lowest starting hourly wage is $13.50
The five-year plan in front of the board Monday plans to raise that amount to $15 an hour over the next few years.
“We’re obviously seeing signs at McDonald's and Chick-Fil-A,” McArthur said. “So to remain competitive, to allow additional support for classrooms and to allow the district to remain competitive in a tight labor market, it’s gonna be really important for us to like continue to really look at those hourly salaries.”
But that would use up any money meant for raising the salaries of current teachers, too.
In the new 2023-24 school year budget, $2.5 million is dedicated to the salaries of all employees. McArthur said raising hourly wages a dollar more takes about $3 million from the budget.
The Columbia Board of Education similarly raised substitute teacher wages by $5 an hour as an incentive for the current school year. If those wages are raised any higher, they would top current hourly pay for staff.
“This is a general comment for public education as a whole,” Chief Operations Officer Randall Gooch said. “We're going to have to look for ways to innovate and change.”
