The Columbia School Board will vote Monday on adding 25 staff members for the upcoming school year.
During the district’s Finance Committee meeting Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Heather McArthur presented a plan to hire the additional staff, at a cost of about $2.6 million.
Positions include a regular education behavioral support person, a home school communicator for Fairview and Locust Street Expressive Arts elementary schools and five more district-wide learning specialists.
McArthur also proposed putting $100,000 toward raising the base rate for substitute teachers. This would increase their base rate to $100 a day, she said.
For revenue, the district is projected to receive about $136 million this year in property taxes. This was up about $4 million from last year. McArthur said property taxes are the district’s largest source of revenue, making up over 50% of it.
The district is projected to have an assessed valuation of $3.1 billion this year. Up $90 million from last year, this jump is largely due to increased new construction, McArthur said.
Proposition C revenue is projected to hit $23.8 million this year. The revenue, which is based on weighted average daily attendance, also considers attendance from pre-pandemic levels as approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
McArthur noted the district will likely be allowed to still use attendance numbers from fiscal year 2020 for fiscal year 2024, but it could be the last year it is allowed to do so.
Per the committee’s recommendation, the board will also vote on several other projects, including a water-testing contract and buying curriculum materials for Spanish I and II.
