I was speaking with a colleague recently who observed I should have a “fun” week coming up. I think our ideas of fun are different.

It also could be the age difference speaking, as an increasing number of my colleagues are now young enough to be my kids – if I had any.

I don’t know about fun, but the coming week is certainly going to be busy.

Some of that already has begun with assignments Friday, which you’ve hopefully, already read about in this edition.

Those assignments included attending and covering the Weirton Finance Committee meeting and a special meeting of the Hancock County Board of Education.

They will be followed Monday night by regular meetings of the school board and Weirton Council. Both should be interesting, especially following some developments of the last couple of days.

The school board has another financial hurdle to get over, with a meeting scheduled for the coming days with state officials, as there is now the possibility of the district not meeting its payroll obligations. I spoke with Superintendent Dan Enich, who seems confident they can make it through the rest of the year if the state provides some aide to take care of February’s needs.

In the meantime, we’re still awaiting a final report from some financial consultants who were brought on the sift through the school district’s budget. I think many of us were anticipating it to be completed by this Monday’s meeting, but it appears that will be held off until Jan. 26 as there is still some work being done.

There’s still a great deal of speculation taking place about how this mess developed, and many residents also are concerned about the future of the schools. Once the financial picture becomes more clear – hopefully sooner than later – we’ll all have a better idea of what is going to happen, but those deadlines are going to be coming up fast.

Local officials previously said they will have until the end of February to decide on any school closures or consolidations, and the RIF process also will be coming up and must be completed and submitted to the state by April.

In Weirton, I anticipate much debate over the future of the County Road Fire Station. There already have been a couple of workshops, and it was a topic of conversation during Friday’s Finance Committee meeting as a resolution is set for consideration by Weirton Council to allocate a portion of the city’s Rainy Day Fund to help cover the cost of hiring six new firefighters and get the process moving.

The problem is, and it’s a good point, those Rainy Day funds are finite. Sure there’s about $6 million in that account, but it’s not a well the city can keep going back to to help with hiring people. There needs to be a steady stream of revenue established.

I commend the city for finally looking for some action on this proposal, which has been bouncing around for the last several years, but don’t be surprised to see a little bit of push back come Monday.

Beyond that, so far, there’s a grand opening for a new business, and a few other scheduled meetings which could have some interesting developments. You never know what else could pop up, though.

Thankfully, we have our ace state government reporter, Steven Allen Adams, in Charleston ready to cover the actions of our legislators. I’m sure he’ll be pumping out at least a couple reports each day to help inform all of you of the developments and decisions of your elected representatives at the state level.

The Legislative Lookahead, some coverage of which is included in this publication, will help to give an idea of some of the goals, but it’s always interesting to see where the promises diverge from the actions.

(Howell, a resident of Colliers, is managing editor of The Weirton Daily Times, and can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com or followed on Twitter/X @CHowellWDT)