School District 57 saw roughly 300 fewer students attending in-person classes for the 2020-21 school year than it projected, according to one of the district's senior administrators.
District secretary-treasurer Darleen Patterson presented an updated annual budget to the district's board of education during the board's regular meeting on Tuesday.
"I think it was about 300-and-some-odd (less students) in our physical building, and our distributed learning went up over 200 students," Patterson said. "(But) students attending distributed learning are funded at a lower level."
While the district did receive more than $3 million in funding from the Ministry of Education that it initially projected, it saw more than $400,000 in lost rental and investment income, according to the amended budget approved by the board on Tuesday.
In addition the district's costs rose by more than $6.7 million than projected for 2021, resulting in the district having to use more than $4.7 million in reserves from pervious year's surpluses – leaving only $1.3 million in accumulated surpluses remaining.
"There has been a significant increase in our staffing costs, and other costs," Patterson said.
With the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic, it's difficult to project what the district's finances will look like by the 2021-22 school year, she added.
"We're finding it very difficult to anticipate what our enrolment will be. Our (enrolment) modelling software is having a tough time predicting what it will look like next year," Patterson said. "(But) we do anticipate being in funding protection next year."
Trustee Tim Bennett, who chair's the district's management and finance committee, said funding protection means the ministry won't reduce the district's grant by more than 1.5 per cent in a single year, to protect districts with declining enrolments from having sudden drops in funding.
The majority of the rising costs have been linked to schools and in-class instruction, Bennett, while the district has found ways to reduce its administrative costs.
"For an organization our size, we have a very lean administration," he said. "(But) we have a $145 million organization to run, and $1.3 million of unappropriated surpluses is not enough of a rainy day fund."
Trustee Sharel Warrington also said she's concerned about how quickly the district has been depleting its surpluses. Back in 2018, the district was sitting on $17 million in surpluses, she said.
"We're scraping the bottom on the barrel, so to speak," she said. "I am concerned about where we are going, and the things we don't have a cushion for. I hope we don't find ourselves not being able to fund those very important (initiatives), if budget crunches become a reality."
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
