Thanks to increased enrolment, there’s more money from the Ministry of Education for school districts across the province.
At Wednesday’s Vernon School District meeting, secretary-treasurer Sterling Olson presented the 2015/16 amended budget to trustees for first and second reading.
“It’s really just an update to a budget that the board passed last spring,” he said. “I think one of the important things is that I don’t think I’ve seen in all my years in education such a growth in the numbers — over 6,500 students unexpected across the province.”
Olson said that increase created significant pressure on the government to fund the number of students, with the ministry adding an extra $6.7 million into the provincial funding system to cover the enrolment growth.
“So that was the minimal amount that they could possibly put in because inside of that they took basically all the holdback funding and everything else just to cover that increase,” he said. “And they were actually able to protect the per-pupil amount school districts were expecting because there was potentially the risk that school districts wouldn’t get funded for all the enrolment growth or would get funded less per student.”
Based upon changes to the district’s funded enrolment, revenue provided by the ministry through the funding allocation system increased by $838,134.
“The amended budget really is minor revisions to adjust to enrolment. We fine-tuned some assumptions and fine-tuned some estimates and incorporated those but really it’s just taking all the decisions that the board made back in spring. All of the changes that were incorporated into that, those are inside of this budget,” said Olson. “The board did approve a number of improvements in the spring, such as extra technology supports and 1.2 extra teachers for some curriculum initiatives. And of course on the flip side the board reduced transportation and a number of vice-principals, but all of those were implemented at the start of the school year and are reflected in this budget.”
Trustees were divided on Olson’s recommendation to give two readings to the revised budget, with Robert Lee, Lisa De Boer and Mollie Bono voting against giving two readings.
“With no disrespect to our secretary-treasurer, I’m going to speak against the motion to have both readings together and even though I know it’s an amended budget, I want to have as much time as possible so that at the end of the day I feel good about making a decision and to walk away from that,” said Lee. “So I’d like to make a motion to just give first reading to the 2016/17 amended bylaw.”
With John Armstrong absent, the three remaining trustees — Doris Squair, Mitzi Fortin and board chairperson Kelly Smith — voted against Lee’s motion.
“As this is a budget that had previously been approved, I am voting in favour of two readings, tonight” said Squair.
With the vote tied, a subsequent motion was made and the budget was given just one reading.
The budget will be given a second reading at a public meeting Feb. 10 at 6 p.m.
CUPE president Mark Olsen wants his members to know that he is aware of their concerns and the way in which they have been affected by budget cuts.
“We’ve suffered through many cuts, and I’m glad to see we got an increase in funding, and my hope is that something will be returned with some of these cuts,” he said. “I don’t want to point fingers, the district is in a tough position and they have to balance the books by law and then they keep getting downloaded, it’s really unfair to the board itself, but at the same time, there is more money.
“I do blame the provincial government for this; they keep downloading the costs for MSP and Hydro, and didn’t relieve those cost pressures.”
