The Canadian Rockies Public Schools board has voted to cut its budget, teaching jobs and education assistant positions for the second year in a row.
While the $25.8 million budget is balanced on the surface, outgoing superintendent Brian Callaghan told the board at his final meeting with them there is no wiggle room and no more reserves.
Last year, CRPS cut $1.3 million from its budget and 16 teaching positions. This year it is cutting another 3.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers and five FTE education assistant positions.
“We have had to go deep into this budget this year and it is the best we can do,” Callaghan said.
School board chair Kim Bater noted it is important for CRPS to pass a balanced budget as it is also facing a $1.6 million and rising deficit to pay back.
“This is the best budget given the financial resources given us,” Bater said. “We have to show the government we are not digging any deeper.
“The situation we are in is based on a funding model that does not work for us.”
Supply funds to the schools have gone down by $10 per student for all grades, while fees for transportation have been eliminated due to increased funding from the province.
Callaghan said principals in the schools address the reduction in supply funds, $89 per student for Grades 1-9 and $140 for Grades 10-12, with a combination of class-related fees and making due.
“We are hoping to offset that by having no transportation fees,” he said, adding student fees will not change.
Bater added the board is reducing its governance budget by 20 per cent or $20,000 to $1.26 million this year, as well as a reduction of .2 FTE for central office administrative support.
That means trustees will see their honorariums reduced either by attending less meetings or attending the same amount and getting paid less.
“We will monitor the budget line as the year goes along and spend less,” Bater said.
Secretary-Treasurer Dave MacKenzie presented the budget with a thorough explanation about how funding for education in Alberta works.
The model, he said, is for the most part based on a per student basis with grant funding also coming from Alberta Education to recognize unique situations.
Variable cost factors make up part of that formula for specific identified student populations like early childhood services for children with mild to moderate disabilities and those who are gifted and students with severe disabilities, English as a second language and First Nations, Metis and Inuit students.
Provincial targeted funding is for initiatives on a priority basis determined by the province, like the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement, student health initiative and high-speed networking infrastructure.
MacKenzie said funding under those categories must be spent on the programs.
The provincial budget this year included a one per cent increase to base instruction grants and a two per cent increase to most other grants, including transportation and maintenance.
However, at the same time, the budget continues to eliminate the relative cost of purchasing adjustment grants and in the next school year CRPS will see $190,000 less as a result.
It will be eliminated next year – four years ago, CRPS received $894,00 from it.
“This is the largest decline in funding we have experienced from grants in the last several years,” MacKenzie said.
Callaghan said provincial education budget releases do not catch the nuances of the numbers, where with one hand the government gives an increase and with another it takes away.
Callaghan pointed out the one per cent per student increase by the province does not even come close to dealing with inflationary factors the district is dealing with, or when declining enrollment is factored in.
The district has calculated an expected decline in its enrollments between its six schools in the valley of 70 students for the next school year.
Bater said operations and maintenance of the schools is also on a per student basis, but as enrollments go down the work stays the same.
“As we have fewer students in the same size buildings, we get less money to do the same amount of work,” he said. “It is a challenge when enrollment is declining to manage those operations and maintenance costs because those costs don’t change.”
Last year, the board cut a third of its custodial positions, but this year, Bater said, no more tightening of that budget could be sustained and that part of the budget is already at a deficit.
Library hours were cut in the last budget as well, with those those facilities closing one day a week. Bater said that reduction will remain, but the staffing will be redistributed to see libraries open five days a week in the schools.
