Peggy Revell
The Rainy River District School Board approved a balanced budget of $42,899,608 for 2009/10 at its regular monthly meeting last night.
“I, for one, am quite pleased with the budget and how it worked out,” board chair Dan Belluz said following the presentation by Superintendent of Business Laura Mills outlining the board’s plans for the upcoming school year.
It was a “good news” budget, Mills told the board.
With enrolment playing such an important role in the amount of money received from the provincial government, Mills noted enrolment at the elementary level actually increased by 3.7 percent due to the amalgamation of Mine Centre at the beginning of the 2008/09 school year.
With a secondary school decrease of 2.1 percent, the combined result was a one percent jump in enrolment across the board.
“[It’s] excellent news coming to budget when your enrolment is stable,” noted Mills.
She said there were some grant enhancements this year, including support from the province to cover the increase in costs arising out of the labour agreements that were made with various unions.
“We saw a little bit of an increase in our plant operations to address the increases in energy costs, and we’re also seeing that they’re finally moving to the 2006 census data for the aboriginal population in the district, and that did have a significant impact for us in our grants,” Mills explained.
“It actually netted an increase of about $75,000.
Within the budget, there is continued support for areas like the “Reading Recovery” program, speech language program, full-day senior kindergarten, and an increase in Student Achievement Teachers, as well as a continued focus on professional development.
“Even though I feel this is actually a very good news budget, we do have some concerns in the making,” Mills warned.
Provincial grant constraints for the 2009/10 year included a permanent 15 percent decrease in funding for textbooks, she noted, and a “very significant” 25 percent reduction in grants for classroom computers in 2009/10, followed by another 25 percent decrease in 2010/11.
The province also has pulled back funding within the Pupil Foundation and Special Education and Learning Opportunities Grant, Mills said, and changed the formula for the Declining Enrolment Adjustment.
Transportation funding also has changed.
“Special Ed. is always a concern for us because as our revenues are decreasing, our need is always increasing,” she explained, noting Special Education funding reform has just started at the provincial level.
Yet another concern is the supported school allocation, said Mills, which first arose a couple of years ago, still exists, and will “become even more of a concern as the ministry starts looking deeper and deeper into the grants for restraints.”
“We have three schools in the system right now that are no longer classified as supported because they are technically too close together,” she remarked. “So Crossroads, Donald Young, and Sturgeon Creek are no longer considered supported.
“So if the ministry ever decides that they want to take off the hold harmless clause . . . if they decide to take that away, it will be a $200,000 hit to our system.”
While reserves are being drawn upon as part of the 2009/10 budget, Mills stressed this was not being done to balance the budget.
Reserve draws, which were approved at May’s board meeting, include $424,000 to fund various board projects, such as Later Literacy/Oral Language Assistants and Critical Learning Instructional Pathways, as well as a withdrawal of $50,000 for the board’s Aboriginal Achievement Leader.
Items such as the Robert Moore and Mine Centre capital funding are considered outside the board’s annual budget and done by separate resolution.
Creating the budget is a year-long process, Mills noted, including input from school councils across the district.
