SD57 budget put on pause following further questions from Trustees

School District 57’s 2025-26 budget bylaw readings have been pushed to a future meeting.

The budget presented during last night’s (Tuesday) meeting in Mackenzie would see $180,697,669 for the District’s operating budget, with $22,038,793 for its special purpose fund, and $10,014,971 for its capital fund.

The budget bylaw’s first reading failed to reach a unanimous agreement, putting the third reading on hold.

“It just delays some of the operational decisions we need to make in terms of staff resource allocations, perhaps some staffing implications, as well as contracting some of the work that we were hoping to schedule for this summer around paving and painting for some of the funds that were coming out of the budget.” said Superintendent Jameel Aziz.

The budget being put on hold was attributed to remaining questions from Trustees, with Aziz noting that some weren’t brough forward during last night’s meeting, as well as previous opportunities for feedback and Committee of the Whole meetings.

Aziz added the governance body has the right to make sure they have complete confidence in the information that’s moving forward, and bring forward questions they may have which he hopes will happen in short order.

He noted that there didn’t seem to be a sole problem regarding the budget for the Trustees.

Last year, the Board made a point to try and get the budget in place early, as that year saw the budget get implemented around the third week of June.

The School Board will hold a special meeting on May 27th to go through the bylaw’s third reading.