NORTHEAST — The North East School Division is going to tap into its reserves for a third year to keep cuts away from the classrooms.
On a cash basis, the division will be in a $2.4 million deficit before it taps into its accumulated surplus.
“This was another challenging budget,” said Wanda McLeod, the division’s superintendent of business. “We did receive a slight increase to our funding but in the last two years we received significant decreases in our funding.”
The division gained $365,000 in grants from the province for the 2018-19 school year budget, but lost $1.5 million from 2017-18 and $1.8 million in 2016-17.
Expenses are $62.47 million for next year, compared to $62.52 million in 2017-18. Cuts include a full-time mechanic position in the transportation department and a 0.8 full-time equivalent in the facilities department. Some positions won’t be replaced, including a Melfort school board trustee.
Six school buses will be replaced at a cost of $600,000, some vehicles will be replaced at a cost of $120,000, $125,000 will be spent to replace surveillance equipment at schools and $195,000 will be spent to replace old computer software.
The division’s largest expense is paying for classroom instruction, which accounts for 67 per cent of expenses.
Luke Perkins, the division’s chair, said it will depend on what challenges the division will face next year to see if it won’t have to tap into its reserves for a fourth year. The division has $17.8 million in reserves, with $6.8 million of it assigned to specific purposes.
“We put the money aside to use it when we need it. It’s good planning. We need it,” he said. “We try to keep things as far away from the classroom as we can.”
Don Rempel, the division’s director of education, said the reserves are operating grants that haven’t been fully spent in previous years, adding the division tends to spend around $1 million less than budget each year.
“It’s important we put the dollars targeted for operating schools back into the schools when we can and right now it’s just to shore up the existing operations.”
