The May 5th session opened with a review of the District's Strategic Plan from Superintendent Andrew Samoil who outlined the Vision and Mission statements for the Board noting how they provide the guide for the Board towards the decisions that they make.
The Superintendent also outlined the impacts of COVID and how it still provides unintended consequences for the District, included on that list, attendance at schools which is still not up to the expected baseline.
Mr. Samoiil also provided a snapshot of the priorities of the Board towards their Strategic Plan implementation process.
Also of note from the presentation were the results of a recent survey of parents/guardians and stakeholders in Eduction on what they would like to see provided in the School District.
As he concluded his opening comments, Mr. Samoil made note of a theme that would be repeated for much of the hour and half session, that of continued declining enrolment in the Prince Rupert School District and how that has impacted on the funding from the province and how the District creates its budget.
"For me in wrapping up the Budget process as a Superintendent it is to allocate limited resources, the Ministry provides us with only so much money and we have to allocate it in what we think is the best way and we seek input from others. A significant thing to remember tonight is enrolment, our enrolment is decreasing and this has a big effect because our revenue is primarily provided to us from the Ministry and it is based on enrolment, so if you have declining enrolment, you have declining revenue" -- SD 52 Superintendent Andrew Samoil
From that introduction, Secretary-Treasurer Cameron McIntyre provided for some of the challenges facing the Board as they prepare to decide how they will balance their financials as part of the Budget process.
Noting as to how the Province provides close to 96 percent of the revenue stream, tied in much to enrolment he provided an overview of the consultation process that the District took on through the first half of this year, and the findings from the survey process that the School Board took on as part of the consultation.
As to how the Financial future for the District looks like, he first noted some of the key elements towards the current fiscal situation that the School Board finds itself at.
The presentation provided for a review of range of financial elements and how they relate to the Strategic plan and Budget considerations
As the Superintendent did, Mr. McIntyre also made note of the declining enrolment situation facing the District.
"When you talk about a three year plan, as Andrew said everything is hinged on enrolment and our actuals for the last four years and our forecast for this year, we have forecasted that it will go down yet again because that just seems to be our pattern, as much as we hope to see it turn around and increase"
The Secretary Treasurer spoke of funding protection and how the amount of that protection won't increase until there is a significant increase in enrolment for the District, with the current protection amounts getting taken away from each year.
Towards the Budget planning for 2022, the review began with a look at the state of revenues and grant funding for the District.
When it comes to Salaries, the Secretary Treasurer noted of the range of elements considered including how increased costs are impacting on Wage rates for Teachers.
Towards what's ahead, the Budget Forecast provided a look at where they could find savings and outlined the scope of the challenges for the Board in addressing what at the moment would be an 800,000 dollar deficit.
Towards options for that looming deficit, Mr. McIntyre provided three options for consideration of the Board members.
Some of the key commentary towards the topic are noted below.
"Can you go back again and explain how we're needing to cut 808 thousand dollars the night before our planning to pass a budget ... our last meeting before we're planning to pass a budget" -- Board Chair Kate Toye
"Can you tell us if you had to do the budget the same way you did it before what would it look like, what would that change be. That's a change that you've made to the way you've reported it to us, is that what you're trying to say" -- Board member James Horne
"I'm without words here tonight, because yeah coming into the last stretch of adopting a budget and sitting on the building of Finance, I'm sort of in a not knowing position since we've been sitting there. Kristi has been asking, we've been asking, James has been asking, how are we looking this year. And we're been told that everything is great and now we're here tonight potentially looking at 2 million because we're looking losing in our funding protection, which I as a Board member are not prepared to consider at this venue ... I'm just very concerned over what I'm seeing here tonight that at the last hour we get dropped this bomb" -- Board member Janet Beil
"For everybody to maybe think about, Trustees and staff is ... It is a lot, 800 thousand is a lot, I keep thinking about what we could possibly cut and nothing comes to mind. Before our budget meeting I would really like another working session, not to go over what we're going to cut, but to go over these slide specifically. Because I would really like to go over them mentally on my own to grasp and to try to understand them better... maybe we could have another question and answer period" -- Board member Kristy Maier
"I was under the impression 100 percent, that a month and half ago or two months ago whenever that was ... I would have 350 in my head, 800 is a complete shock. At the end of the day if you go back and recrunch numbers and you define things in a different way, it could come back Im just warning everyone it could come back to eight, regardless of what went on, or how our process was again in 21-22 ...
It will be interesting when staff takes it back again and you know if it obviously if keeps coming back out to that number we'll have a good conversation on contingency and what that is ...
But it will regardless, the next board will be behind again with it, with that declining enrolment, that is what's nipping us every year it's going to come back. So you just gotta be more diligent, get ahead of it and somehow have a better observation" -- Trustee Bart Kuntz
Perhaps the most on the mark observations came from long serving and soon to be departing Board Member Tina Last who outlined her frustration at what will be her last budget with the Board.
"You can understand frustration that we've gone from 350,000 to 800,000 to a potential 2 million, ... the week before were supposed to pass a budget. So you know to me that's unacceptable and what makes it even more unacceptable is I'm having a huge case of deja vu because we did this last year.
Last year we learned that we had a big, big deficit at the 11th hour and holy crap then we're scrambling to find things to cut.
This isn't working for me and Thank God this is my last budget. Cause in twenty years it's just getting worse and it's not that we don't have enough money, there will never be enough money. But with all the things we started to do after the budget was finished last year, because we did not, the Board was very specific we did not want to find ourselves in that position again where we're learning that we had huge cuts to make and it came out of nowhere.
So we had consultants come in and we changed how the requests for financial reports that the Board would seek, all with the obviously rose coloured glasses insurances and expectations that we wouldn't be here again, we would know the whole damn year where our finances were ...
In past years we passed our budget in April, I suspect we'll be passing this budget in June, because we're nowhere near informed enough, or confident enough to pass a budget.
The Board has one, two jobs. Hire a Superintendent and govern over the budget and I'm not going to speak for six other people, but Isitting here and I don't have fricking clue what the budget's doing, I don't know what our finances are and I sure as shit didn't know we were 800 thousand in the hole"-- Board Member Tina Last
To bring a conclusion to the May 5th the session, the possible areas for cuts were provided by the Secretary/Treasurer for the Board's review and consideration leading up to their next meeting.
There were some follow up questions related to the areas of cuts, with Ms. Last refreshing the Boards memories on the staffing cuts of the past, particularly in the area of Vice Principalships and how the current situation the Board is facing could have repercussions.
Other areas explored at the end of the session was the focus on potential displacement of Educational Assistants and support staff in the schools.
To help the Board members explore what needs to be done towards their final determinations, the Board will hold a working session before they meet to make the final decisions required towards the budget document.
To conclude the session Superintendent Andrew Samoil noted a few items of note that the District is facing, noting they are found elsewhere as well in the province.
"Enrolment is a big driver of a lot of things, but I think there's a lot of things here that are suggestions that the Board is going to be looking at. There has been no decision, so I just want to make sure people understand that, no decision has been made, these are suggestions and there will be some additional discussions.
It's difficult in times of declining enrolment, there are approximalty forty districts that are also looking at deficits of different sizes, that they are dealing with. But they are dealing with them and resolving the issues" -- SD52 Superintendent Andrew Samoil
The surprising amount of the deficit that the Board members now have to look at, as Trustee Last pointed out, is very much a thing of deja vu, for it was much the same kind of commentary that parents and stakeholders heard at this time last year.
At that time much of the discussion also focused on itinerant teacher positions, something which suggests that the Board members haven't really been too dedicated towards oversight when it comes to the Boards financials, other than when it comes to the surprises that the final Budget decision period brings to them.
The Board notes on their presentations to their Budget information can be found through the SD52 website.
As the Board members noted they will be making they final Budget decisions at their next session scheduled on May 17th.
Also of note from the District is the absence of any video record from their April session, which has yet to be posted to the District Archive.
The Board has also not advised as to when or if they plan to abandon the Zoom process and return to in person sessions, where they would perhaps hear more feedback from parents.
More notes on SD52 themes see our archive page here.
No comments:
Post a Comment