The Quesnel school board will be looking to pass its budget for the 2019-20 school year this week, and ahead of that, members of the public heard a presentation about the budget on Wednesday (May 8).
School District 28 (SD28) secretary-treasurer Bettina Ketcham shared a presentation outlining the 2019-20 school year budget. Trustees and a representative from the Wells-Barkerville Parent Advisory Council (PAC) were at the afternoon meeting, and trustees heard the Wells-Barkerville PAC hopes to have the same supports in place next year as it has had this year.
The budget process, in theory, kicks off at the beginning of March, with administrative team meetings and meetings with district principals, explained Ketcham.
“The process is definitely very collaborative, and we take into account the information provided to us by the Ministry of Education (MOE), which comes out March 15,” she said.
Ketcham says SD28 is in a positive place now where they are prioritizing investments, as opposed to contemplating cuts.
“We’re in a really different place this year than we have been in previous years,” she said. “Three years ago, we were in a process of school closures and significant cuts of upwards of $1 million. We’re now in a far different place; we’ve seen government make significant investments in education, which have been obviously a positive change for school districts across the province. So there have been significant increases to supplements in the last couple of years, so instead of determining cuts, the board is going to be prioritizing various requests, which is nice, so there is going to be a reinvestment back into the system this year.”
Ketcham did warn there is some uncertainty for the future, as the MOE is currently reviewing the funding formula.
“They announced that about a year ago, and they’re still undergoing a consultation process with various partner groups,” she said. “What we’re hoping to see is some kind of direction or funding formula model being delivered to us some time in the fall after they’ve collected their feedback from various groups, and we’ll see what happens to the model for next year. We don’t know where that’s going to put us for next year’s budgeting process. For the 2020-21 school year, things might look substantially different, and we’re not sure where that’s going to land us.”
A discussion about school district budgets would not be complete without a discussion about enrolment, and Ketcham shared that enrolment is expected to increase slightly in the next three years.
“Enrolment is critical because it’s driving the funding that we get,” she explained. “We get funded per full-time equivalent, so for each student body, we get funded a certain amount per student, and if that student has special needs or is of Aboriginal ancestry, they get funded based on that full-time equivalent as well.”
Ketcham says total enrolment in September 2018 was 2,931, and that is expected to rise slightly to 2,965 in September 2019 and increase to 3,0001 in September 2020.
“For next year, we’re anticipating a slight enrolment growth, 34 students overall,” she said. “In previous years, we’ve been in significant enrolment decline, so this year and next year, we’re anticipating some increases.”
While the district’s total enrolment is increasing, Ketcham noted the elementary enrolment is actually dropping.
“The enrolment for our elementary population is actually going down, and that’s because we have significant cohorts in Grade 7 who are moving to the Grade 8 years, and what we’re seeing in the last three to four years is that we have quite a small [kindergarten] enrolment,” she said, noting the district used to see kindergarten enrolments around 400, and they are now around 200. “As you see these larger cohorts move out from Grade 7 to Grade 8 and the smaller cohorts coming into kindergarten, that’s what’s causing that decrease and that trend.”
However, this does mean an increase in enrolment at Quesnel Junior School, and Ketcham explained enrolment is expected to be 506 at QJS in September 2019, up from 477 in September 2018.
Enrolment at Correlieu Secondary School is expected to increase from 616 in September 2018 to 659 in September 2019.
Ketcham says if the board did not entertain any request for investments, it would have a $308,431 surplus for next year. Because they don’t want to leave money on the table, they have reached out to their partners and teachers and asked them to come up with funding requests.
The board was going to deliberate those requests at its in-camera meeting May 8. According to Ketcham, these requests do come out to more than $308,431, so the board will have to prioritize them.
The board of education will deliberate the 2019-20 budget at the May 15 public board meeting at 7 p.m. at the SD28 administration building at 401 North Star Rd.
READ MORE: SD28 still short on qualified teachers; UNBC Quesnel hopes to offer solution
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