School divisions in Alberta are busy studying the impact of the 2021 Alberta budget which was announced last week.
However, they don’t have all the data to study quite yet.
“They (Alberta Education) made an announcement that nobody will be receiving less money than they did last year, which is very positive news,” said Michael Kilcommons, Christ the Redeemer associate superintendent, corporate services. “But there are actually no details released.
“They said they would give us the breakdown of the grant structure by the end of March.”
The provincial government announced on Feb. 25 it would be spending approximately $8.2 billion on K to Grade 12 education this upcoming school year a slight decrease from $8.32 billion in 2020-21.
CTR Catholic is projecting a budget of approximately $103-million for the upcoming school year, a slight increase from 2020-21.
It has benefited from having a larger than expected increase in enrolment in 2020-21 due to students attending its homeschooling, Centre for Learning@Home program (CFL), as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That increase will help the division as a new funding formula is in place.
Funding for divisions is now based on “weighed moving averages” over three-year enrolments.
Funding for the 2021-22 school year will be based on 20 per cent of the 2019-20 school-year enrolment, 30 per cent of 2020-21 school year and 50 per cent on projections for next year.
“We are quite hopeful because we had a real significant increase in the CFL this year and that will still move forward as the 30 per cent for next year,” Kilcommons said. “We do anticipate some students from the CFL will go back to our traditional schools.
“But we are predicting we will have increased enrolment at CFL over previous years (prior to COVID-19).”
While CTR Catholic is projecting a drop in enrolment for 2021-22 to 10,227 from 10,764 in the present year, Kilcommons is optimistic the division will be able to maintain its funding.
“We know our funding is going to be at least the same,” Kilcommons said. “We are looking at staffing, trying to maintain optimum staffing and class-sizes at all our or schools, but we aren’t going to pull the trigger until we know a little bit more.
“We think it will be a good situation.”
Kilcommons said the projected decrease in enrolment is partially due to present CFL students opting to go to traditional schools in their hometowns around the province.
There was an increase of approximately 1,000 students at CFL for this school year.
“CFL helped us, but I like to think it made a real difference for 1,000 kids this year,” Kilcommons said.
Drew Chipman, Foothills School Division assistant superintendent-corporate services, is also cautiously optimistic with the announcement of the Province’s educational funding.
“First blush, it sounds good, we had some enrolment decline this year for 2020-21, so if we are going to get the same money next year that’s good news,” Chipman said. “But we still don’t know what that is going to look like because the funding profiles haven’t been finalized.”
The public division was hit by COVID-19 as student enrolment projections were down approximately 205 students as of the Sept. 30 official count.
Funding is based on student enrolment, approximately $10,000 a student.
COVID was a factor. The division was spot on in its projections prior to the pandemic.
A five-year history shows Foothills has been within one percentage point of its projections to the actual enrolment account.
However, Chipman said it is speculated several students who would have typically gone to Foothills opted to be home-schooled with other divisions.
Foothills, along with divisions across the province, sent a letter to Education Minister Adriana LaGrange in the fall asking for division’s to be deemed harmless by the lower anticipated numbers due to COVID-19.
“What she did say when she met with school boards after the budget was announced on Thursday that the hold harmless that school boards were asking for there won’t be any lose in reduction in enrolment funding, which is good news,” he said.
Chipman said area MLAs RJ Sigurdson, Roger Reid and Miranda Rosin offered their support in divisions not being harmed by reductions of enrolment due to COVID.
The division had expenditures of $1,248,000 in 2020-21.
Foothills projections for the 2021-22 school year is 8.060 students. Its enrolment as of the Sept. 30, 2020 count was 7,960 students. The enrolment has jumped up to 8,024 as of January — an increase of 64 students since the fall count.
The detailed funding profile will determine where the provincial funds will be sent, for example how much is in infrastructure, maintenance and other categories.
Chipman said a concern is whether bridge funding - funds set to disappear due to the new funding model - will stay the same as for 2020-21, at approximately $1,143,000 or drop by 50 per cent.
“We anticipate that we will receive it next year but then it will be gone altogether in 22/23, hopefully we’ll know more with the Funding Profile,” Chipman said.
Chris Fuzessy, Foothills superintendent of schools, said while the amount of money coming in from the Province has remained the same, the costs continue to increase.
“For example insurance has gone up 500 per cent in the last couple of years,” Fuzessy said. “So if we are being funded at the same level, the added insurance costs have to come from somewhere.
“We can’t take it out of capital, we have to take it out of operational. That is the type of discussions we need to have once the budget lines are put in place.”
