SD57’s board of trustees has passed the proposed 2023-24 budget, which had to navigate a $2.3-million dollar deficit.
As outlined earlier in the week, most of these cuts were made outside the classroom – something Board Chair Rachael Weber emphasized.
“This has been a really difficult budget to balance,” Weber told media after the meeting. “We need to keep it away from the kids, and we did our best… our primary goal was to minimize impacts in the classroom.”
Weber explained the deficit came from a collection of things, ranging from the lasting impact of the pandemic and inflation to government funding.
As shown above, the biggest impact was felt in the District Administration expense. Shown below is where those cuts were made.
(NOTE: The “Transportation and Housing” expense is $6,110,123, not the $61 million shown. This mistake was addressed at the meeting but has not been corrected in the handout available online.)
This is not the end of the line for budget cuts.
Facing a $2.3 million dollar deficit, the district only made $1.7 million in cuts, dipping into their surplus for the remainder.
This structural deficit – relying on surplus funds to balance annual budgets – is something the board wants to eliminate as soon as next year.
Weber mentioned because of this, work on next year’s budget will begin much sooner, “with potentially greater reductions.”
“We don’t want to cut positions. We don’t. But we need to keep it away from the kids.”
“We don’t want to touch surplus to balance a budget – it is not something we want to do, it is not a healthy scenario,” she explained.
The board will “keep pushing and keep asking” for more funding from the province to avoid as many cuts as they can. Weber confirmed her board has not been given the opportunity to meet with Rachna Singh, the Minister of Education and Childcare.
Tonight (Tuesday) was also the first appearance of Trustees Sarah Holland and Shar McCrory, who were elected earlier this month.
Both were very vocal during the meeting, afterwards Weber said the board was “a family again” with the two open seats filled, and spoke highly of both of them.
“They both come with knowledge, financial knowledge, trustee knowledge, they fill the spaces that we need and we are very thankful for them.”
The two were sworn in to their roles prior to the public meeting for the sake of time.
The board will not meet again until September.