Budget Decision time nears for SD52 Board members

A process that started in January is working its way towards the end, as members of the Prince Rupert Board of Eduction prepare to make their final call on the options available towards the 2023-24 School Budget.

The most recent information session for the public came on April 20th when trustees heard more about the School Board's financial planning and how it will address the priorities of the Strategic plan.

As the session began, Superintendent  Andrew Samoil reminded the trustees of those priorities which focused on three key elements for the Board: 

"Just a reminder with this slide for the trustees in your discussions that we did work with many of you and we have some new trustees on the Strategic plan. 

The Strategic Plan was done with consultation with our partner groups and so just a reminder that when you're making the final budget decisions in May that it should be with the focus  on these priorities that we have all agreed on.

And so Equity is of course number one and we find that through our commitment through literacy and numeracy for all of our students. 

As well we said that Truth and Reconciliation was a priority and of course we have a point five Truth and Reconciliation Vice Principal who works with all staff and all schools

And of course Mental Health literary was certainly one that was identified as high priority for our students and our staff to some extent that these are important topics to have a healthy workplace and to have healthy students both physically and mentally "

Ms. Brittney Verissimo who haas served in the top financial post since the departure of Cam McIntyre in February provided for financial comparisons for the School Board Members.  '

She was assisted in her presentation  by Gary Slykhuis the Fraser Valley School Board official who has been brought in by the District to assist in the Budget preparation, his role that of a Helping Secretary Treasurer. 

To set the scene for the Board members Ms Verissimo outlined the nature of the current Board deficit at the time of the April 20th meeting.

The current shortfall is estimated to be just over 700,000, a number which is what the Board members will have to address before they submit their financial plan to the province before the summer.

Towards a final budget decision, the Board is awaiting additional information what won't be known until this month and will impact on what they decide.

When it comes to their financials, it was noted that SD52 spends 88 cent on every dollar on salaries and benefits, with significantly less on Supplies and services a distribution of funding that Mr. Slykhuis noted has an impact on how the Board has to make decisions.

"Generally when we look to cut budgets, most people first place they look is the smallest pie of all the supplies and services, so 12 cents of every dollar that we get goes to supplies and services and 88 cents goes to salaries and benefits.

So the reality is that if we're looking to save some money, to make cuts in the budgets there's no way we can avoid looking at the salaries and benefits section which means staff reductions. So I just wanted to show that because that is the reality of not trying to find everything by shaving supply budgets.

I think some of the increases we're seeing now in the adjustments is because we've tried to shave those budgets and it just isn't reality to just do that when you still have to supply those services"

The focus for the information relay on the night was to update the board on elements such as salary increases, enrolment levels and anticipated increases in areas of spending.

Ms Verissimo also recapped some of the Budget Consultation findings from the early stages of the process. Towards reducing the Budget Ms. Verissimo and Mr. Slykhuis came to the session with four Budget Reduction scenarios for consideration by the Board.

"Given that we are required to make some reductions, we have provided four suggested scenarios for discussion by the Board. As we are waiting for additional information regarding the budget, we ask that you don't make any final decision tonight and that you make the final decision at our next budget meeting.

We have generalized the categories in which we have suggested considering changes in. We will not be going into details tonight on the changes and specific position. The challenge with going into specific detail regarding changes in a public meeting is that it is easy to identify the specific person who might be impacted by the change, given that we are a small school district.

We are suggesting that no decision will be made tonight given that our funding information provided by the Ministry is incomplete  at this time and creating unnecessary worry is not the part of tonight's meeting"  -- from SD52's Brittney Verissimo's presentation at the April 20th Budget session

Ms. Verissimo then outlined the nature of their process towards how those staff reduction discussions would take place in consultation with the unions involved. As well as how established procedures would be followed towards any reductions.

Towards the Four Scenarios the options available for consideration of the Board are outlined on the chart below.

click to enlarge

The focus of the discussion was how to use reserves and what amount should be left behind for contingencies makes for the main difference among the four scenarios

Mr. Slykhuis noted of the High Risk nature of Option four, which utilizes the rest of reserves.

"As you can see there, your contingency or unrestricted surplus is down to Zero, so really have got very little left all that is left is the school surpluses and the amount surplus left over from the targeted Indigenous funding so you really have no safety net in that scenario there"

Board trustees followed up with a number of questions among some of them: concerns on enrolment, differences in the level of potential teaching staff reductions that were outlined, Operations and facilities themes and how they should approach the current level of contingency funding.

You can review the more detailed review of each of the scenarios, as well as follow up questions from some of the Board members  through the Budget Video presentation  from the SD52 YouTube page.

The funding levels to be  provided by the Ministry of Education have yet to be delivered and as was noted in the course of the April 20th session that makes for part of the challenge in budget preparation. 

Board Chair Kate Toye observed that the next Budget meeting is set for the evening of Tuesday May 9th. 

A full review of the Board's work on the Budget since January can be explored here.

Past notes on Education themes in Prince Rupert can be found on our archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.