The Columbia School Board approved its newly amended budget for the current year at the latest monthly meeting, with other items of discussion centering largely on district projects and regular matters.

Thursday’s meeting opened with a public hearing on the fiscal year 2023 amended budget, with Columbia Superintendent of Schools Chris Grode presenting.

Among the figures Grode noted, the education fund stands with a deficit of $281,736, the operations and maintenance fund has a deficit of $107,547 and the capital projects fund stands out with a deficit of $403,970.

Grode said that though the deficits are worth noting, the balance of the education and operations and maintenance funds at $8.3 million and $3,718,000, respectively, indicate that the deficits are not that extreme.

“We don’t want to be in a deficit, but right now it’s not a time to panic,” Grode said. “We will keep an eye on it… This was the first year without the incredible influx of federal ESSER funds, and so that probably had a little bit to do with it.”

In regard to the substantial deficit for the capital projects fund, Grode noted recent work done to restore and protect the roof at Columbia Middle School.

While apparently expensive in the moment, Grode and Columbia School Board President Greg Meyer described how the project should ultimately save the district funds down the line.

The roof repair was relatively less intensive than a more standard construction project and, per Grode, didn’t require any moving of the HVAC unit or other such work.

Meyer spoke highly of results he had seen upon inspecting the CMS roof, and both he and Grode spoke to the benefit of the 20-year warranty.

“This is gonna be cost saving for the district for the next 50 years,” Meyer said. “It’s a really innovative and good project, and we did the same thing on the Eagleview roof.”

The revised budget was ultimately approved by the board later in the meeting.

Other action items included the first reading of annual board policies and approval of the 2023-24 handbook for all schools with some slight adjustments specifically regarding some awkward language on student’s wearing winter coats and hats indoors.

One action item was ultimately tabled but did receive some discussion, as the board is currently in the process of discussing an expansion to Columbia High School’s parking area with the city.

The project would see a new lot built on the hill overlooking the high school, with the lot taking up part of the southwestern edge of Bolm-Schuhkraft Memorial City Park.

While the board opted to leave any action to a later meeting to allow the Columbia City Council time to discuss the project, discussion did turn to the need for the project as well as a few technical aspects.

It was suggested the school district would be handling initial construction costs while the city would largely take on major maintenance and repair projects down the line.

Columbia School Board member Andrea Khoury expressed concern about ensuring students participating in after-school events are able to park there without losing space to other members of the community.

It was noted that, while there is expected to be a rule about the lot being reserved for students during school hours, the lot would generally be first-come, first-served outside of those times.

Columbia School Board member Adam Hemken elaborated on the matter.

“The priority was, really, to restrict it during actual school for student parking, because any after hours or extracurricular, there might be people attending,” Hemken said. “So we didn’t actually want to limit it to just student parking, because then that would eliminate the public’s ability to park there to also be a spectator.”

The Columbia City Council discussed the parking area at Monday’s meeting. Read more by clicking here.

Discussion at the end of the school board meeting turned to planned expansion and renovation of the high school as well as the ongoing facility study.

Grode said he, Meyer and Hemken had recently met with Cobalt Construction Consulting – the district’s owner representative for the future project – as well as FGM Architects to go over the site plan.

While Grode described the plan as “still rather rough,” he and Hemken noted it nevertheless offers a good sense of perspective for the beginning of the project.

“We’re looking forward to the next draft,” Hemken said. “It’s kind of like writing a book. We’ll have multiple versions before we get to the final, but at least this does give an idea.”

The board also covered several personnel items at the start of the meeting, with resignations from seven individuals in the district, six new employees and various other vacancies.