The Prince Rupert School District (SD52) board of education has approved using all of the district’s accumulated surplus to balance its 2015/16 budget.
Due to declining funding protection, SD52 received will receive $366,000 less from the provincial government next school year, with the budget including a total of $30,129,983 for the 2015/16 fiscal year.
SD52 is characterizing the budget as a “status quo”, with no significant staffing changes being anticipated.
“This year’s been a fairly smooth process. We recognize as years go on we won’t have surplus available forever and there may be challenges in the future,” said Cam McIntyre, secretary-treasurer of SD52.
By using $978,715 of accumulated surplus from previous years, the district only needed to find $25,000 in savings to balance the budget. McIntyre said by reworking figures in the current year’s budget, additional savings were found and will be carried forward.
The B.C. Ministry of Education required SD52 to cut $148,000 from its administrative costs in 2015/16, but once again SD52’s financial department found some solutions.
“A little over $70,000 of those savings come from the fact that our director of instructor continues to only be filled half-time. We have about $50,000 that we’re expecting in savings in legal costs because the province is moving us toward a shared service for labour-related legal claims,” explained McIntyre, noting some other savings will come from reduced energy costs, revenue from a parents group to provide bus service in the Westview-area and reduced costs resulting from switching a program provider.
The 2015/16 school year budget was approved by the board of education at its April 14 meeting.
