Despite a funding reduction, as well as minimum and maximum spending on certain line items imposed by the provincial government, the North East School Division managed to carve out a budget for the 2017-18 year.
“It was a challenging budget, that’s for sure, with the $1.5 million reduction in funding,” said Wanda McLeod, the division’s business administration superintendent. “We did have to reduce expenses and we relied quite heavily on our accumulated surplus – or reserves – to balance the budget.”
The division will receive almost $58 million in funding next year, compared to almost $58.9 million this year. It will spend $62.5 million next year, compared to $63.4 million last year. In terms of the deficit, after the amount of money for non-cash items like amortization is removed, the division will be $3.2 million short in cash before it taps into reserves.
Much of the spending from the reserves will be used to purchase capital, like school buses and computer hardware.
| 2017-18 | 2016-17 | Change | |
| Governance | $236,736 | $459,450 | -$222,714 |
| Administration | $2,135,409 | $2,203,421 | -$68,012 |
| Instruction | $41,858,631 | $42,490,888 | -$632,257 |
| Plant | $10,417,683 | $10,238,897 | $178,786 |
| Transportation | $4,504,766 | $4,762,053 | -$257,287 |
| Tuition | $290,500 | $275,000 | $15,500 |
| School Generated Funds | $1,032,173 | $949,206 | $82,967 |
| Complementary Services | $1,461,441 | $1,450,215 | $11,226 |
| External Services | $233,176 | $228,208 | $4,968 |
| Other Expenses | $347,267 | $362,755 | -$15,488 |
| Total | $62,517,782 | $63,420,093 | -$902,311 |
Instructional spending will go down by $632,000 to $41.9 million. That amount was capped by the province – it could not exceed this year’s spending. That was achieved by four less full-time equivalent teachers due to the cutting of grades at Gronlid Central School, one less full-time equivalent occupational therapist and one less full-time equivalent counselling consultant.
Governance spending – used by the division to pay for school board expenses like meetings and travel – has been capped at almost $237,000. This year, the division spent slightly more than $459,000.
Transportation costs are down almost $257,000 to $4.5 million. A less conservative estimate on diesel has been used to achieve that savings.
The province did increase the minimum the division had to spend on preventative maintenance. They provided a conditional grant of $1.3 million, up from $1.2 million. The division will spend $1.7 million.
Marla Walton, the division’s vice-chair, was diplomatic when asked if the caps and minimums on certain line items hurt the division’s autonomy.
“The school board still maintains some autonomy,” she said. “To some people, it may appear as though some autonomy has been removed, but that is something that is open to interpretation.”
The division also had to tap into its reserves for this year’s 2016-17 budget. McLeod said there might have to be more changes in upcoming budgets to make it sustainable.
“We’ll probably have to look at decreasing our expenses,” she said, adding that further reductions in funding are also possible.
The superintendent said that it was important to keep in mind that people in the division were careful with their expenses, meaning that less tends to be spent than budgeted.
“We’ll have to really look at what are people spending and do they need to report that as an expense in their budget next year.”
Walton said the board was 100 per cent supportive of the budget.
“I think [McLeod], in conjunction with the other employees within the division, has done an excellent job in hammering out the details in what was a rather difficult budget.”
