Some Prairie South School Division trustees are disappointed that the province is not providing adequate funding for education, considering their organization is facing an operating deficit next year of $5.3 million.
In next year’s budget, Prairie South (PSSD) expects revenues of $99,273,356, expenses of $95,941,724 and capital purchases of $11,387,990.
The operating surplus is $3,331,632, but after removing $8,650,000 in new school funding from grant revenues, the surplus turns into a deficit of $5,318,268, business superintendent Ron Purdy explained during the most recent board meeting.
The division is also facing a cash deficit of $3,788,298 due to capital asset purchases, amortization/depreciation, and future employee benefit expenses and payments, he continued. The division expects to cover that using its unrestricted surplus fund.
Purdy reviewed the budget category by category with trustees. His main message was almost every expense area was increasing compared to this year.
One notable revenue item is the division expects to receive an increase in grant funding of 1.4 per cent. However, since that doesn’t include the extra $1 million received from the province to address inflation, the increase is worth roughly $100,000.
Trustee discussion
Some inflationary areas where divisions have been struggling — and that the province gave them money to address — are plant (building) operations, insurance premiums, heating and electricity costs, buses pars and rising fuel costs, said trustee Shawn Davidson.
Plant/building costs next year are projected to decrease by $456,849 from this year, while transportation costs are pegged to climb by $9,410, he continued, before asking for clarity on those areas.
Division administration removed $1 million from plant operations and put it toward preventative maintenance and renewal (PMR) because the province reduced PMR funding this year, said Purdy. Meanwhile, the division expects caretaking costs to rise by $100,000, water to go up $30,000, heating to increase by $70,000, insurance to jump by $40,000 and “virtually just about everything” else to rise.
As for transportation, salaries are a big increase, but the division can offset that using savings from bus repairs, he continued. PSSD has budgeted roughly $600,000 for the past few years for maintenance but has not spent that because of solid repair work.
Furthermore, fuel costs have risen in the past few years, so Prairie South added $700,000 to the budget, Purdy said. The division has roughly $200,000 to spare, but this July’s federal clean fuel tax will likely eat up that amount.
Prairie South uses over one million litres of gasoline per year, which means every penny at the pump costs $10,000.
Davidson appreciated hearing why those numbers are so high, considering they’re useful to have while “pounding the table” during discussions with the Ministry of Education about addressing increasing costs.
“… This is nebulous, and any time we get into funding arrangements which are nebulous like this, it’s very difficult to budget, plan and report accurately what’s going on,” he added.
Creating this budget with administration has been an interesting process, said trustee Lew Young. While expenses are increasing, the division is providing more services and incentives than before.
“We have heard throughout the province that funding for education is not there like it used to be and it has fallen behind,” he continued. “The last number of years, we have been fortunate to be able to implement a budget to be able to enhance services in our school division.”
Providing these services has cost roughly $4 million, while the money has come from dwindling reserves, Young added. The state of provincial education saddened him, while he noted that PSSD students would have suffered much more if the division hadn’t used its reserves to cover shortfalls.
Board chairwoman Giselle Wilson also thanked administration and the board for using those reserves.
“The reality is that here in Prairie South, we are OK. It’s also fair to say our partners in this province are not,” she added. “It would be nice to get to a point where education — and the value of education — is properly funded.”
The next PSSD board meeting is Tuesday, June 6.
