With no help in sight from state or county officials for a $2 million project to dredge Lake Kittamaqundi, the Columbia Association has abandoned its hopes to begin clearing the lake next year and has not included money for the work in its draft $45.8 million fiscal 2004 budget.

The lake in the heart of Columbia near CA headquarters is an important focal point for the community. Large volumes of silt carried into the lake by the Little Patuxent River have made portions of it very shallow.

The dredging - the most expensive project proposed by the homeowners association for the 2004 capital budget - was contingent on other agencies paying half the cost.

But the prospect of tight state and county budgets caused CA to decide against including the project, said Chick Rhodehamel, CA's vice president for open space management.

CA's board of directors recently received the draft budget, which includes a projected $50.3 million in revenue and a nearly $4.4 million surplus. The board will discuss the budget in detail during a meeting Jan. 9.

The budget plan includes a major renovation of Hobbit's Glen Golf Club, which has damaged greens. A total of $679,000 will go to rebuilding 16 greens and re-grassing four.

The plan - which has been challenged by longtime golfers who maintain that the course is poorly managed - calls for the course to be closed from August next year to May 2004.

Although the Lake Kittamaqundi dredging will not be part of the 2004 budget, Rhodehamel said he is optimistic that the funding assistance will eventually come. He said he could request the necessary money from the board as early as next year, for the 2005 fiscal budget.

In the meantime, the association is preparing for the dredging. CA included in the current budget $400,000 for dredging engineering, the permits process and the creation of a structure to draw down the lake.

"In order for us to go after any type of funding, these [engineering] studies need to be done," CA President Maggie J. Brown said.

Currently, there is no practical method to drain Lake Kittamaqundi, Rhodehamel said. If the lake needed to be drawn down today, "we'd need to find a whole lot of pumps for that," he said.

The dredging project also includes returning the Little Patuxent River - which runs along Lake Kittamaqundi and sometimes floods, contributing sediment to the lake - to its original configuration.

Thursday night, some board members questioned the rationale of spending $400,000 to prepare for dredging when there is no guarantee of future financial assistance.

Board member Barbara Russell of Oakland Mills asked why the association should pursue the project in the current "state of the economy."

Rhodehamel said he would rather not have the dredging plan "drop off agencies' radar screens."

"We want to be ready, should an opportunity arise," he said.

Despite a projected budget surplus of about $4.4 million, board chairman Miles Coffman said the board likely wouldn't use any of it to cover the $2 million dredging cost without help from other entities.

He said the dredging is also the responsibility of the state and the county because of the sediment carried into the lake from upstream.

The extra money needs to be preserved for other expenses, such as building maintenance and paying down the association's $84.4 million debt, Coffman said.

"We've got some money there, but we have other issues out there, too," he said. "Redoing the golf course is going to hit us pretty hard."

Assessment rate

The draft budget also maintains the property assessment rate - 73 cents per $100 of valuation on 50 percent of the fair market value - and assessment revenue is expected to reach $25.9 million. That amount will likely increase, however, as east Columbia homes have recently been reassessed.

The Columbia Association will mail out its assessment bills in July, and some property values could increase as much as 25 percent since the last assessment three years ago.

The draft budget also includes:

$50,000 for board member stipends ($5,000 for each of the board's 10 members).

$485,000 to renovate Slayton House, in Wilde Lake.

$375,000 to renovate the Owen Brown Community Center.

$417,000 for pathway restoration.

$109,000 for parking lot renovations.

$388,000 to complete pathways in River Hill.

$200,000 for renovations of five tot lots.

$125,000 for CA's new in-house Web server.

The board will hold public hearings and work sessions before approving the budget in February.