Staff
FORT FRANCES—Facing a preliminary deficit of more than $600,000, the Northwest Catholic District School Board will dip into a reserve fund to balance its $16,530,245 budget for 2009/10.
This information was presented to the board as part of a preliminary budget update from Superintendent of Business Chris Howarth during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday night.
Given the projected deficit, the board will use a classroom reserve transfer of $643,626 to balance the budget.
Revenues are projected to increase for the 2009/10 school year by $829,510 compared to last year, said Howarth, noting this increase mainly is due to an increase in the tuition fees paid by First Nations, as well as the non-GSN grants the board wasn’t able to budget for in past years.
At the same time, the projected expenditure of $16,539,245 reflects an increase of $576,086 from the 2008/09 budget, Howarth added, which he said stemmed primarily due to salary and benefits that were part of the collective bargaining agreements reached between the board and staff.
Another increase comes from an anticipated rise of $28,000 for transportation costs—an increase primarily associated with the half-day kindergarten programs at St. Joseph and Sacred Heart schools.
One large initiative being included in the 2009/10 budget is $150,000 for equipping 17 classrooms with “Smartboard” technology—an initiative that also will include renovating, painting, and refurbishing the classrooms.
Howarth said a continuing decline in enrolment is still affecting the budget, although it has started to level out.
Also Tuesday night, the board approved a resolution that gave administration the go-ahead with certain initiatives to reduce costs over the next four budgetary years, including:
•reducing reading resource teachers over the four years;
•reducing the amount spend on ‘Smartboard’ implementation (following the $150,000 investment the 2009/10);
•a one-time savings by twinning principals between Our Lady of the Way School and St. Michael’s in 2009/10; and
•deferring computer equipment replacement.
“[Implementing these reductions], we were able to pare this deficit back to $643,00,” Howarth noted.
“If we are to go lower than that, we are going to have to make some pretty serious staffing cuts,” he warned. “There’s really no way around that.”
Pointing to budgets for the years ahead, Howarth added this deficit is not going to drop “a lot.”
“And, of course, we will, as senior administration, we will be looking at the budget each year and will be considering further reductions, but there also will be pressures for additional programs,” he remarked.
“Our current reserve balance, at about $2,700,000, will be exhausted in 4.4 years at this rate,” Howarth told trustees, given a balanced budget would be achieved through transferring money from the classroom reserves.
“We don’t know what the future holds but meanwhile, if we continue to see funding at this level and our costs increasing, then we’re going to run out of money in about 4.4 years out of the classroom reserve,” he warned.
Minor changes still are expected to be made to the budget over the upcoming month, and there is the possibility of more funding through grants from the government.
“A lot of things could happen,” Howarth explained. “We could get additional EPO during the year that we don’t know about, and we probably will, and that will reduce the deficit, because if you recall in other years, I’ve projected deficits but they don’t end up materializing because of the funding we’ve received.”
But he cautioned administration already was able to account for some of this EPO revenue in the budget process, so what will come in will not be as high.
A final budget is expected to be presented for approval at the board’s June 20 meeting, in time for the June 30 deadline to submit it to the Ministry of Education.
