A half a dozen students, teachers and parents attended when the School District #27 (SD27) preliminary 2015/16 budget was presented at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School on May 26.
Secretary treasurer Kevin Futcher summarized the high points of the approximately $60.921-million preliminary budget in a PowerPoint presentation just prior to the regular board meeting (held in 100 Mile House).
The operating budget was one of the financial schedules discussed, with an expected total Ministry of Education grant of $51.17 million for 2016, compared to about $51.10 million in 2015.
“These are very close as you can see; this is actually quite unusual because between the two years we are forecasting there’s a drop in about 260 students.”
However, the province’s per-student funding has increased, with the direction for spending just recently confirmed at a meeting he attended with the ministry, Futcher noted.
“They said it is for the increased salary and benefits for the teachers and the other staff.”
Most of the other items were also quite similar to the previous operating budget, he explained.
The decrease in enrolment carried over into the operating expenses schedule, where it was noted that forecasted transportation costs (to run about 60 SD27 buses) dropped to $60,000 from $75,000 the previous year.
“It is a balanced budget … and that is without going into any of the previous year’s surplus or without making any large or drastic cuts.”
When Futcher opened the floor to questions, Cariboo-Chilcotin Teachers’ Association president Murray Helmer asked if the previously announced shortfall in funding protection was included in the reported ministry grant.
Futcher replied that the cut is still coming in the final budget, as the ministry does not take funding protection reductions into consideration until final budgets are prepared in the fall.
“If your budget is balanced now, you are going to be $800,000 less in revenue … what cuts will you be anticipating in the fall?” queried Helmer.
Energy-wise, we have quite a few initiatives that will be taking care of that, Futcher said.
“A lot of it would come under administrative savings … so we will look at that in the fall.
“A lot of that, too, will be based on how many students do show up in the fall. These are based on preliminary numbers.”
Superintendent Mark Thiessen added SD27 has “done a lot of that planning already.”
“We are prepared for that already; decisions [have] been made, staffing-wise.”
Helmer then asked if a surplus in the final budget is anticipated.
Futcher said he will know that answer shortly.
“I wouldn’t be too surprised that we might have a little extra that would go into the surplus used for future years … unless the ministry downloads other costs to us.”
