It was budget day for School District 57 and its Board members, giving all three readings to the 2026-27 annual budget.
During last night’s (Tuesday) public Board meeting, Trustees were presented a balanced operating budget, fairly similar to last year, however the School District will be using $800,000 of prior year operating surplus to cover one-time or short-term initiatives.
Board Chair Craig Brennan said they’re pleased to have a balanced budget, but not satisfied.
“In the reality across British Columbia, many School Districts are struggling to even balance their budgets.”
“This is a bit of a status quo budget, it hasn’t changed a lot, but we were able to give some wins based on what people asked for. You can’t grant everything to everybody, but we were able to say yes to some things and include that in a balanced budget.”
In the presentation given, it showed operating revenues seeing a 0.4 per cent increase compared to the previous budget, with expenses seeing that same number.
Brennan said one of the way’s they’ve been able to keep the budget balanced was by finding ways to be more efficient, such as moving away from redundant systems and modernizing workflow.
The School District is projected to see enrollment decreases of as mush as 150 students for next year, which could affect its funding.
Brennan said that will need to be accounted for moving forward to help keep future budgets in a similar position.
“We’re going to anticipate a reduction in the number of students we have, and most of our funding come from the students who are actually here.”
“Although it’s a concern, that will be one of the things the next Board has to tackle, is what efficiencies can you find to make sure that you can at least maintain a status quo and not be looking at doing cuts.”
84 per cent of the School District’s budget is towards its operating fund ($182,095,470), with 11 per cent for special purpose fund ($24,047,574) and 5 per cent for capital fund ($11,250,00).
The total budget comes out to $217,393,044.
The budget was unanimously passed by Trustees.
Other items discussed during the meeting included Trustee remuneration review, and the annual facility grant plan.
The full meeting agenda can be found here.
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