They’ll be able to slot in a few items and continue working within the parameters of last year’s budget, making a few assumptions and exercising best judgment on a number of unknown factors.
But, the administration and financial department at the South East Cornerstone Public School Division would rather have the new provincial budget in front of them sooner, rather than later.
They are not alone, however, since all public and separate school divisions in the province are working under the same unknown financial conditions until June 1 when the province’s Finance Ministry is promising them the latest provincial budget.
The delays were imposed due to the need to change the provincial (fixed) election date to this spring, so as not to conflict with last fall’s federal election and campaign.
“We can assume certain things, but until it comes down, we just can’t complete our own budget,” said Cornerstone’s director of education, Lynn Little. “And from what we’re hearing so far, there won’t be a lot for bigger capital projects.”
Shelley Toth, the school division’s finance manager, said there are processes they will follow and one of those will be to contact all sectors within the public school division for each manager or leader to submit their budget requests within the next few weeks. That will include areas such as human resources, transportation and facilities among others.
“We know that fuel costs, for example, are really beyond our control, but those people can make some assumptions and present their financial needs budget,” said Toth.
“Another area of concern is with certain software agreements we have with companies headquartered in the United States. We have a lower Canadian dollar now and it’s a shifting value, so again, we have to make some assessments and assumptions.”
Toth said the other disconcerting item is the fact they won’t have much time to prepare their respective school division budgets following the presentation of the provincial paper on June 1.
“They’ve given us to the end of June. Usually, we have a provincial budget in March and that means two or two-and-a-half months to prepare our school and division budgets. Now, it’ll be less than a month. That’s a short term in which to make some important strategic decisions,” said Toth.
