Foothills School Division has completed a best-estimate preliminary budget for the upcoming school year as it awaits further financial details from the recently elected United Conservative Party.
“You don’t know what to expect — should you be taking things out, putting things in?” said Drew Chipman, Foothills assistant superintendent, corporate services. “A number of other school divisions have talked about reductions because they are concerned about what the (provincial) budget might show.
“We are in a little bit better situation because we have money in reserves.”
Division trustees passed a $97.226-million operation budget for 2019-20 on June 19. The division has revenues of $94.572 million leaving a deficit of $2.653 million.
That shortfall will be made up by approximately $1.6-million from the division’s reserve funds. The remaining funds will come from amortization of capital assets.
Divisions are not permitted to submit a deficit budget unless it can be covered from their reserves. The division’s operating surplus is $10.5-million.
However, there may be plenty of fine-tuning to the numbers as Foothills awaits the UCP blue ribbon panel's financial decision and the provincial budget sometime in late fall.
“We don’t know what is going to change with regulations with the school act whether it will have an impact on the (division’s) budget,” Chipman said. “We don’t know about the cost of the new collective agreement with the Alberta Teachers’ Association, the previous agreement had said the cost at the central table would be borne by the Province, and we have been told not to expect that.”
There will be some impact on classrooms in the division as it is no longer getting just under $1-million a year in Classroom Improvement funding, which it has received for the past two years.
“That enabled us to add teachers and support staff, and that was about 50/50,” Chipman said. “This budget does have a reduction in staff based on those who were hired from the Classroom Improvement fund.”
The program provides foods for students who may need it during the day.
Other changes in the classroom include the evergreen program in which items such as Smartboards and computers will be replaced every six years rather than five years.
The division is people based.
Its largest expenditure is instructional staff salaries with $54.661 million to certified staff and $17.350 million to un-certified staff.
The school division’s budget is higher than last year, when it was $96.79 million.
School boards have been informed the UCP is committed to finance enrolment growth at schools. The division is anticipating a small increase in enrolment of 32 students from its present 8,005 students.
The division’s budget is scheduled to be finalized after the Sept. 30 enrolment count. That deadline may be extended the Province has not announced its budget by that time.
