Prince George school board trustees want to take a closer look at the district's financial sustainability after taking $3.2 million out of reserves to balance the 2014-15 operating budget.
The move leaves just $6.6 million remaining in those accounts and prompted trustee Brenda Hooker to seek a review to address the district's sustainability and long term viability.
"It's clear that using your surplus funds in order to meet the operational costs of the district is not sustainable," Hooker said.
Similar reviews in the past have led to rounds of school closures, the most recent occurring in 2010 when trustees closed six schools and reconfigured three others as part of dealing with a $5.2-million budget shortfall and an ongoing decline in student enrollment.
Another review could raise a concern another round of closures is in the cards, trustees acknowledged.
"I recognize that this motion is probably going to bring up a lot of uneasy feelings from the past, especially with the word 'sustainability' in there," trustee Tim Bennett said. "That word has a history in the district."
Sharon Bourassa, the lone trustee to vote against the motion, suggested administration is capable of alerting the board of such a concern and a trustee-initiated review is not needed.
"I think that if there were going to be issues going forward, long term, they are the first to speak up when we have our meetings," Bourassa said.
However, school board chairperson Sharel Warrington said that if the discussion is not started now, it will be left to a new board, "and the issue will grow."
"Yes the word 'sustainability' has a negative connotation, however we need to look at sustainability in a positive way, we need to look at what we can do to make sure we are sustainable," Warrington said.
"It isn't something to be feared, it is something we need to address and so I'm not in favour of paying forward to our next board a huge issue around revenue and expense issues where we're needing to look at our surplus dollars to maintain services to our students."
Trustees also voted to send a letter to the Ministry of Education calling for adequate and sustainable funding to cover rising costs and provincially-bargained wage and salary increases and asked partner groups such as the district parent advisory council to sign the letter.
They also voted to plan a "town hall" meeting co-hosted with the partner groups to raise public awareness about the challenges the school district is facing.
Trustees voted 4-3 to pass a $123.7-million operating budget through first and second reading with Trish Bella, Kate Cooke and Bourassa voting against.
"I have real difficulty in being forced into a mini-ministry model...we are being forced to do to our departments exactly what the ministry does to us," Bella said during the meeting.
In an interview, Cooke said she had trouble with earmarking $248,000 for the so-called "Essential Eight," a series of initiatives aimed at developing the skills teachers need to deal with "vulnerable learners."
Cooke argued the money was being used for "capacity building" and rather it be spent on hiring more staff.
On Tuesday, she had tried to convince trustees to use half that amount to hire a speech pathologist instead but the idea was rejected after superintendent Brian Pepper said a more continuous source of funding would be needed to attract someone to fill the position.
Bourassa could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
