The board of education for Holy Trinity Catholic School Division has approved its 2022-23 budget, which includes additional funding from the province to hire extra teachers and address increased heating fuel costs.
Trustees approved the revised budget during their Sept. 19 meeting and will send the document to the Ministry of Education for approval. They had originally approved the budget in June, but the province provided school divisions with extra funding over the summer to meet inflationary increases.
Holy Trinity received $176,600, of which $153,005 will be used to hire 1.8 full-time equivalent (FTE) teacher positions to address increased student enrolment and $23,595 for plant operations and maintenance.
“We are very appreciative from the ministry that this money is coming forward,” Curt Van Parys, chief financial officer, said during the meeting.
Besides the extra funding, the ministry reclassified the division’s Early Years Family Resource Centre project in Swift Current as an external services expense from a complementary services expense — adding $348,035 in costs — which the division also had to address, he pointed out.
Furthermore, Holy Trinity received $82,350 under its external services revenue category for a KidsFirst Regional Program, which also had to be incorporated into the budget.
Holy Trinity’s revised budget shows revenue of $27,056,108, which is $481,241 — or 1.8 per cent — higher than before, Van Parys said. Meanwhile, its expenses are now $26,629,028, which is $539,905 — or 2.1 per cent — higher than before.
This leaves a surplus of $427,080.
Adding 1.8 FTE teacher positions means the total number of FTE staff across the division decreases slightly to 243.30 FTEs from 243.62 FTEs, a drop of 0.1 per cent.
Division administration still believes there are several risks or “wildcards” that could affect the budget this year, said Van Parys. These include further pandemic waves, enrolment increases, staffing pressures, use of substitute staff, the LINC agreement, inflation, natural gas costs, and software expenses.
He added that Holy Trinity has $175,000 in unassigned revenue to address all those risks.
The next Holy Trinity board meeting is Monday, Oct. 24.
