Fewer students enrolled in the school district next year will mean less money to pay the bills.
Steve Hopkins, secretary treasurer for School District 47, presented his preliminary expenditure plan at Powell River Board of Education’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 17.
At $21.7 million, it’s approximately $600,000 less than last year, said Hopkins, divided into$300,000 less from enrollment and $300,000 from surplus money.
District 47 expects about 41 fewer students next year for a total enrollment of 2,000. This enrollment number includes students in distributed learning and other programs. Hopkins said there are about 1,850 students in bricks-and-mortar schools in the district.
The district, like many other around the province, has had declining enrollment for the past few years. The provincial government has responded to this trend by implementing a funding protection plan, which provides 98.5 per cent of the previous year’s funding despite enrollment numbers, to provide financial predicability.
The number of school-based administrators is expected to remain at nine and Hopkins expects about 4.3 full time equivalent fewer teachers than previous year.
There will also be reductions in support staff throughout the district. Hopkins anticipates about four fewer support service assistant positions available for September. He added that a secretary who retired last year and a grounds staff employee will not be replaced.
“We’re looking at a model where we don’t replace with a full-time employee but budget half that salary in extra labour to get through the shoulder season of traditional grounds work,” he said.
Hopkins said he will jostle his duties to partially cover one professional staff position that has been reduced in facilities and transportation, and increase the number of hours for a part-time accounting employee.
Maintenance amd custodial budgets will remain steady at last year’s levels.
A $76,000 reduction on services and supplies spending from last year is anticipated.
He also anticipates $3.3 million in capital spending, a large part of which is for the seismic upgrading project underway at Henderson Elementary, and $3.8 million in special purpose funds spending from a number of ministry of education programs including Ready, Set, Learn and StrongStart BC.
