On Monday evening, the city council met once again to discuss a projected revenue shortfall. This time, they talked about the possibility of needing to use money from the city's cash reserves.
It's estimated that by the end of this year, the city will have more than $37 million in cash reserves. But future projections suggest that if nothing is done to increase revenue or reduce spending the city will be forced to use more than $30 million of that over the next six years.
This would mean that by 2031, the city would only have about $6 million remaining in its cash reserves.
Additionally, the projections show that over the next six years, the city's spending could exceed its revenue.
Back in February, the city met to discuss options for generating more revenue. They primarily discussed increasing certain sales taxes. Columbia city manager De'Carlon Seewood said while the taxes would increase revenue on residents spend money here, this kind of tax would also come from visitors to the city.
"Because of the nature of who we are, a lot of our sales tax burden is passed on to people that are visiting the community as opposed to residents in the community," Seewood said.
Current projections show that in 2025, more than 60% of the city's total expenditures are going towards employee salaries and benefits.
"We're looking at positions that haven't been filled for a long period of time. If we go another year without filling those positions, that would help the budget," Seewood said.
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