The Columbia Board of Education plans on spending $11 millions more this year than it did last year. School board members approved the $181.4 million budget Thursday morning. Columbia Board of Education president Christine King says, eighty percent of this significant increase has to do with the opening of Battle High School and the reorganization of some secondary schools.
“This year is a planned deficit spending that we have been talking about for the last two years, and so it’s not a surprise,” King said. “I mean when you build the brand new school and you are reorganizing what we are doing, it costs more.”
King says another increase of 1.9 million dollars in transportation costs is also associated with Columbia’s newest high school. This includes creating and changing bus routes for all secondary schools in Columbia.