The first of three public hearings on the city of Columbia’s proposed $456.9 million budget for fiscal 2021 is scheduled for Monday night.
The hearing will take place at the Columbia City Council’s regular meeting. There’s a good chance, though, that it will be upstaged by decisions about the future of the city’s trash and recycling utility. The council’s agenda also includes scheduled votes on whether to permanently eliminate curbside recycling and the distribution of black trash bags and blue recycling bags to Columbia households.
City Manager John Glascock has forecast a tight budget year and asked all his department heads to submit budgets reflecting 10% cuts from the current year. He also is proposing the elimination of 78.5 full-time jobs, 11 of which are filled.
Glascock’s budget anticipates $416.7 million in revenue and dipping into reserves to meet projected expenses.
The public is welcome to speak on any aspect of the budget Monday night, but the council will specifically be seeking input on budgets for:
- The Commission on Cultural Affairs, which is proposing grants to more than two dozen local arts organizations and events. It anticipates city funding of $103,000.
- The Housing and Community Development Commission, which will make its recommendations formal after a meeting later this month. Commission Chair Blaine Regan said in a letter to the council that the group has received a total of $3.27 million in requests for funding but has only $1.65 million in federal Community Development Block Grant and HOME money available.
- The Community Development Commission, which noted in its report to the council that the city’s annual spending on social services has declined precipitously over the years even as the need has grown. It said, for example, that the city spent $50 per resident living below 200% of the federal poverty level in 1980 compared with $22 in 2020. Glascock’s social services budget for fiscal 2021 is $893,556.
- The Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board, which is responsible for doling out grants to events that attract visitors to town, such as the True/False Film Fest, the Roots N Blues N BBQ festival, the Show-Me State Games and the We Always Swing Jazz Series.
As it stands, the overall budget for fiscal 2021 includes no utility rate increases, except for the possibility of a 3% increase in water bills that may or may not be proposed after the calendar year ends. If enacted, it would cost the average household 75 cents per month.
The council held a full-day work session on the budget Thursday. It spent a good chunk of the afternoon talking about the status of the solid waste utility, which is responsible for household and commercial trash and recycling collection.
Two of the three related ordinances on Monday’s agenda are designed to save the utility money. Permanently ending curbside recycling service, which has been suspended since early July, would save the city about $1.35 million, a report to the council says. Utilities Director David Sorrell said during the Thursday work session that while it’s a wonderful service, it is the least efficient way to collect recyclables. The city also has had consistent trouble staffing the utility.
Fifth Ward Councilman Matt Pitzer asked Sorrell what it would take to restore the service. He said he would need 16 to 17 refuse collectors with commercial driver’s licenses. As it stands, he has 13, and he said he hopes to have three more soon. That raises the possibility of restoring curbside recycling collections, he said.
“The thing I don’t want to do is say we’re gonna start Monday, then we start Monday and find out Tuesday that we can’t do it,” Sorrell said. He wants to make sure his staff has adequate cushion that he can continue the service consistently.
Ending the distribution of trash and recycling bags would save the city another $350,000. The city now gives households two vouchers a year for a total of 100 black trash bags and a minimum of three vouchers a year for bundles of 18 blue recycling bags.
The city does not recycle the blue bags once they're emptied. Pitzer said that amounts to about 2 million blue recycling bags per year going into the landfill.
The council also will debate whether to place a measure on the November ballot that would allow the city to consider converting to an automated system of trash collection involving roll carts. Council members on Thursday were split on the issue. Mayor Brian Treece noted that 91% of residents who responded to the most recent citizen survey said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with trash and recycling service “and yet we’re going to throw it out the window” rather than finding a way to fix it.
Treece expressed frustration that ideas discussed during a February work session about the trash utility, such as clamping down on the number of trash bags and unbagged items that customers can set at the curbside, have not been implemented. Those things, he said, might have decreased “the march toward ... this catastrophic suspension” of the existing service.
Both First Ward Councilwoman Pat Fowler and Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala said the first thing the city has to do is address problems with retaining workers with commercial driver’s licenses. That would almost certainly require paying them more. Absent that, the city wouldn’t be able to adequately staff the utility regardless of what system is in place.
Sorrell said refuse collectors now start at $17 per hour while senior collectors earn $18.70. He told the council that raising those wages to $20 per hour would require a rate increase of about 51 cents per month, while raising them to $22 per hour would require households to pay another 85 cents per month.
Pitzer noted that despite residents’ satisfaction with the service, the utility is losing $2 million per year, and projections show those losses growing worse.
Fourth Ward Councilman Ian Thomas told the mayor he’s right that “there is a march towards the automated system, and I don’t really think that we should be standing in the way of it. The benefits over the current system are clear, and the fact that 91% of people are satisfied doesn’t mean they won’t be satisfied with this other system.”
Also Monday, the council will:
- Consider an ordinance establishing fare-free bus service in fiscal 2021. Public Works Director David Nichols gave a report on the proposal Thursday and said the city would have to draw nearly $484,000 from the transit system’s reserves to cover the cost in fiscal 2021 and in future years could draw from the city’s transportation sales tax to continue providing free rides.
- Hear recommendations from physician Elizabeth Allemann regarding further restrictions on businesses and gatherings to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a debriefing from Traci Wilson-Kleekamp on the results of a recent town hall discussion on policing.
The council meets at 7 p.m. Monday in its chambers at the Daniel Boone City Building, 701 E. Broadway. Future hearings on the budget are scheduled for Sept. 8 and Sept. 21. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.