School District 57 is predicting a roughly $1.5 million decline in revenue for the 2020-2021 school year.
Last week the district board of education approved the budget bylaw the coming school year. The projected revenue for the coming year is $165.7 million, compared to nearly $167.3 million for the 2019-2020 year.
"We heard loud and clear (from the district's stakeholder groups) to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible," board chairperson Tim Bennett said. "Thank you to our department staff for finding these efficiencies in their budgets."
Part of the lower revenue for the year is a reduction in the provincial grants from the Ministry of Education, as the district anticipates seeing roughly 42 fewer students in 2020-21.
However, the district is also projecting lower investment income, a reduction in lease and rental income, and a reduction in assorted other income streams.
District secretary-treasurer Darleen Patterson said, given the uncertainties facing the district because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the district opted to take a cautious approach to budgeting for the coming school year.
"We want to get to September and see how many people we have in our buildings," Patterson said. "It's a lot easier to roll our additional spending in the fall then to pull it all back."
Trustee Ron Polillo said the budget committee and district staff were able to find savings in areas like travel expenses for professional development.
"We did that this year but, looking forward, this is not something we can do next year or the year beyond," Polillo said.
If declining revenues and enrolment continue, the district may need to make difficult decisions about how to manage its costs, trustee Sharel Warrington said.
"We will need to go through a sustainability exercise," Warrington said. "We went through one in 2010. This will be a significant exercise for our district."
FUNDING SOUGHT FOR NEW SCHOOL
In addition to approving the 2020-21 operating budget, the board of trustees signed off on the district's five-year capital plan during their meeting last week.
The biggest ask the board is making to the Ministry of Education is a $75.3 million to build a replacement school for D.P. Todd Secondary School.
"We're going to submit that plan to the ministry. We think we have a pretty good business case," Polillo said. "We've added three new portables to D.P. Todd. That strengthens our case that we're having some capacity issues at that school."
There are now six portable classrooms set up at the Heritage-neighbourhood secondary school, he said.
A plan put forward by the district last year to renovate the existing school to increase its capacity from 600 to 900 students was rejected by the Ministry of Education.
"It's my understanding, that on the advice of ministry staff, they essentially said to us that the likelihood of a replacement project was (higher) than a renovation," Polillo said.
Also on the capital plan is a proposed $978,000 demolition of the closed Mackenzie Elementary school and addition projects at Malaspina Elementary, Edgewood Elementary and Springwood Elementary to add four new classrooms, a daycare and multipurpose room at each school. Those school additions were projected to cost between $5.2 million and $5.9 million per school.
"As you can see, it's an incredible amount of work we want to do over the next five years," Polillo said. "(But) keep in mind this is our wish list we're submitting to the ministry."
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