School District prepares for final Budget Consultation in March

It's two consultation sessions down and one to go for School District 52 officials and trustees, as they take the pulse of parents and guardians when it comes to how the District will address a projected shortfall of 1 million dollars.

The first budget consultation took place on January 26th, with a second held earlier this week when the Board of Education met with partner groups to receive their feedback to this point of the engagement process, receiving comment through both a survey that the District is currently conducting and from discussions at the two gatherings.

Parents or residents interested in education in the region will have one final opportunity to weigh in on the topic, with the final public meeting taking place on March 10th at the Multi-Purpose room at Charles Hays Secondary.

At their February 9th Board meeting, School District trustees approved the 2015-16 Amended Annual Budget Bylaw, with a total budget amount of $30,085,297 approved, down slightly from the original bylaw proposal of $30,129,983.

The School District noted that from those totals, spending from the special purpose funds has decreased, while spending in the operating budget has increased.

Charles Hays Secondary will be the venue for the Final
SD 52 Budget Consultation session on March 10th

Increases in those operating expenditures have been allocated towards a required trustee by-election and unfunded salary increases for principals and other exempt staff.

The School District expects that it will use its surplus up in this budget year, which will have an impact on next year's budget. 

It's on that budget for 2016-17 where the cut in expenditures of 1 million dollars is required, which is the subject of the current round of community engagement sessions with residents.

For those that have not participated in the Budget survey process, the deadline to submit your contribution comes up on Friday, you can take the survey here.

Some background to the Budget survey was found in this item from the blog on January 29th.

A review of the Budget Consultation process from January 26th can be found here the public information worksheets that were part of that consultation can be reviewed here.

For more items related to education on the North Coast see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review