HERMANN – From guesthouses to roads, the effects of the ongoing development of data centers in Montgomery County continue to command much of the discussion of the monthly sessions of the Hermann Regional Economic Development Corporation board.

Last Tuesday was no different as that group’s Board of Directors heard that bookings of guesthouses on weekdays for data center workers might affect their status as short-term rentals. And then there’s the heavy-truck damage being done to area roads such as Saw Mill Road leading from Highway 100 to a quarry where much of the rock needed for the data center is being mined.

As one county government official described it recently, “That whole road is a disaster.”

The maintenance of that road is the responsibility of the state, the city and the county with portions of the road lying within each entity.

How many of Hermann’s 100-plus guesthouses might be used as lodging for out-of-area workers involved in the development of the data centers isn’t known. But Hermann City Administrator Patricia Heaney, one of the 15 Hermann Regional Economic Development (HRED) Corporation directors, said changing the use of the former single-family homes to something other than weekend use might put them in a different light with city officials regarding the Conditional Use Permits under which the guesthouses operate.

The data center near the Interstate 70-Highway 19 intersection and the one closer to New Florence continue to be seen by many in the business community as an economic boom for the Hermann area. Indeed, the opportunities that might be offered by the data centers — projected to employ hundreds of workers when fully developed — are at the center of the Hermann Area Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to produce a Strategic Plan to guide the agency’s business development into the coming years.

Toward that goal, Chamber Executive Director Melissa Lensing last Tuesday morning told her follow HRED directors that her organization has gathered commitments for $475,000 from donors in the capital campaign that will fund the Strategic Plan project.

The Chamber also is involved in one of HRED’s key considerations: Obtaining a more-detailed housing study to help potential builders know exactly what kind of housing units are needed in the Hermann area. Two companies have contacted the Chamber about conducting such a study, Lensing said, but she noted the Chamber board will be considering a third proposal that has arrived. That discussion was expected to have taken place Thursday morning with a decision made possibly soon on who would conduct the study.

Gasconade County R-1 School District Superintendent Geoff Neill, a member of the HRED board as well as a member of the Montgomery County Economic Council, is one of the local officials anticipating the benefits of the data centers’ operations. Google has pledged to donate to the R-1 District $500,000 a year for 10 years as part of that company’s community betterment effort. Amazon, the other data center operator, has yet to make such a pledge.

But that money — and the funds pledged to other public service agencies in Montgomery County — aren’t expected to arrive until after the companies begin paying local taxes. The donations are being considered a version of “payment in lieu of taxes” resulting from the abatement by Montgomery County government of much of the companies’ property taxes.

Unfortunately for the R-1 District, that money could be used now. As Neill explained, less funding is expected from state government for the coming school year and there’s a possibly of less local money coming in through a voter-approved property tax break. And, he added, federal funding for the coming year appears to be stagnant, compounding the tight financial picture for many public school districts.

“That’s one of the reasons we’ve raised our reserves over the last six years,” Neill told the HRED board.

Indeed, it’s that cloudy financial outlook put Neill in a position he had never been in during his tenure as a public school administrator — asking a school board to approve a deficit budget (annual revenue compared to expenditures) for the “first time in 10 years as a superintendent.”

To be clear, the district’s overall operating budget is balanced; it has to be as required by the Missouri Constitution. But to balance the total budget, the district has to reach into its reserves, which means less money might be available in coming years to keep balancing the overall funding blueprints.

Meanwhile, Neill said the district is preparing for the start of another semester, this time set for Tuesday, Aug. 25.

“Just like that, it’s time to roll again,” he said.

The tight budget has meant that some retiring teachers won’t be replaced for the next school year, but that doesn’t mean the district will be short staffed, he noted.

“As far as staffing goes, we are fully staffed,” he said.

Nine of the board’s 15 members attended last week’s HRED session. Next month’s gathering on Tuesday, Aug. 4, is set for the Chamber of Commerce Conference Room at 8 a.m. The meeting is being moved because the R-1 Administration Building’s board room is used as a polling place for the city of Hermann.