City of Columbia, Missouri  
Meeting Minutes  
City Council  
Council Chamber  
Columbia City Hall  
701 E. Broadway  
Saturday, August 13, 2022  
9:30 AM  
Budget Work Session  
I. CALL TO ORDER  
Mayor Buffaloe called the meeting to order at 9:39am.  
6 - Peters, PItzer, Fowler, Buffaloe, Foster, and Lovelady  
Present:  
1 - Waner  
1 - Skala  
Excused:  
Absent:  
Budget Work Session Presentation  
Attachments: FY 23 Budget Work Session Presentation  
Mayor Buffaloe welcomed the City Manager De’Carlon Seewood to introduce the topic  
and welcome the Finance Director and his team to proceed.  
Mr. Lue presented a general overview of how the Budget was put together, goals, and  
priorities alignment, the Fiscal Year 2023 pipeline/plan and new decisions items, the  
budgeted numbers, operational changes and utilities rates for the upcoming year.  
Budget Officer Andrea Greer highlighted important items in the Budget process to help  
new council members to come to speed in the city's budgeting processes. Andrea stated  
that as they review the budget, there is a need to look for new ways to improve the  
budgeting process - making it a year-long process for strategic plan building for budget  
process and monitoring. The main thing the finance department did this year was to  
allocate the core budgets. The department saw an increase in the core budgets  
compared to revenue. Andrea suggested looking into core budgets in the future and see  
how they are developed relative to the funds available. Spending items are proposed in  
this budget.  
Mr. Lue added that, there is need to improve our budgeting process aligning priorities to  
the city’s strategic plan. Dept reallocated the core Budget. In the future how those are  
allocated. Andrea highlighted priorities of FY23 including city employees, social services,  
public safety, transportation. In this FY23 the city is switching employee health insurance  
to Anthem Blue Cross. Also employees will have free Arc access.  
Andrea clarified what the city means with the term “New Decisions Items - NDIs”. These  
are the items that departments add to their budgets to ensure excellence in their  
operations. Some of the NDIs added in the FY23 budget are, 9 utilities and customer  
service personnel, IT needs a new software, winter warming center, police new additional  
service personnel, sunshine record personnel, 12 firefighters and 2 fire trainers,  
construction materials for bicycling, Consultant for city-wide computer plan, part time  
refugee coordinator; health coordinator. These items cut across the city's strategic plan  
priorities. Currently the city has 49 open positions.  
Mayor Buffaloe asked to clarify the contracts that support the basic needs services.  
Mayor Buffaloe asked whether or not staff know the percentage increase with the support  
of these basic needs.  
The director of Health and Human Services, Stephanie Browning clarified this explaining  
that the highest amount of social services spending occurred in 2009, and the budget  
was cut in 2010. The cut remained flat for all the years that followed. The original request  
was about $246000 which had more new decisions items than the amount of funds we  
had. About $146000 for social services contracts was increased this year. The total of all  
spending on social services this year is about $868000. FY09 it was over 935000. In  
FY10 this amount was reduced to approximately $860000 as part of the core budget.  
With the addition of $146000 for FY23, this brings it to a total of approximately $1.1  
million.  
Council member Nick Foster asked to compare a yearly percent increase since 2009 and  
see how much that will be in this year’s budget considering inflation.  
Stephanie Browning pointed that the consumer price was about 3%. This will be  
somewhere around $300000 in this year.  
Council member Pat Fowler suggested that the needs of the community have expanded  
to more than 3% a year. We are not at a faster rate to meet the needs of the community.  
Suggesting looking for the possibility of using the ARPA fund in addition to the budget  
already allotted to social services to catch up with the increasing needs of the  
community.  
Mr. Lue commented on Ms Fowler's suggestion cautioning that in the city’s social  
services budget you will need to take a third of that and add it to that because we get a  
third of money from the county.  
The City Manager added that the city has been planning to hire a consultant to help  
analyze the best ways to fund organizations that provide services to the community or  
find ways to identify businesses that are run by underrepresented groups in order to  
address their need and ultimately provide them with the resources they need to grow their  
businesses.  
Council member Betsy Peters suggested that there is a need to look at how to address  
the surrounding city neighborhoods - especially the ones that have their buildings turned  
down so as to build bigger homes. We don't have anything in the code that addresses  
that. She also recommended hiring someone to do zoning for central area housing.  
II. ANY OTHER ITEMS COUNCIL MAY WISH TO DISCUSS  
None.  
III. ADJOURNMENT  
The meeting adjourned at approximately 12:30pm.  
Members of the public may attend any open meeting. For requests for accommodations related to  
disability, please call 573-874-CITY (573-874-2489) or email CITY@CoMo.gov. In order to assist staff in  
making the appropriate arrangements for your accommodation, please make your request as far in  
advance of the posted meeting date as possible.