INNISFAIL – The Chinook’s Edge School Division and the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools Division (RDCRS) have passed their respective 2020-2021 budgets.
Trustees approved the budgets at regularly scheduled board meetings last week.
The Chinook’s Edge division includes schools in Olds, Sundre, Didsbury, Innisfail and Carstairs, while RDCRS has schools in Olds and Innisfail.
The Chinook’s Edge budget is $129 million for the 2020-2021 school year, with an operating deficiency of $1.7 million.
“As far as class sizes go, we believe there will be a negligible affect on class sizes across the system,” superintendent Kurt Sacher said in an interview. “I think we’ve done a really good job of buffering the classroom environment.”
With net amortization of $1.2 million and capital purchases of $1.3 million, the division’s operating reserves are expected to decline by $1.7 million.
The division has made a number of moves to reduce costs, he said.
“We needed to make an adjustment overall in spending by reducing it by about $2.8 million,” he said. “We did that with a combination of $1.2 million from reserves and the other way we tackled the bulk of the other $1.6 million is through reduction in central office staffing and central allocations.
“We’ve come up with some more efficient and effective ways to provide supports to schools in a number of areas.”
The division has about $5 million left in reserves, or about 3.8 per cent of the budget.
“We still need to have reserves for emergencies that might occur,” he said.
Student enrolement in 2020-2021 is expected to be 11,120, roughly the same as 2019-2020.
“Alberta Education introduced a new model for funding school divisions for 2020-2021 that shifts funding to a weighted moving average, which captures student numbers across three school years to provide funding certainty at budget preparation time,” he said.
The RDCRS budget totals $111,960,099, up slightly from $111,810,702 in 2019-2020.
Of the total budget, $98,256,566 is coming from the provincial government, up slightly from $97,186,702 in 2019-2020.
The budget includes $1,234,000 in fees, down from $1,280,000, while fundraising is proposed to be $400,000, down from $850,000 in 2019-2020.
On the expense side, certificated salaries are projected to be $53,584,920, down from $54,750,172 in 2019-2020, while certificated benefits are projected to be $13,435,553, down slightly from $13,782,113 in 2019-2020.
In a press release, the division said as part of the effort to balance the 2020-2021 budget, some staffing allocation changes are being made, including reducing faith coaches' full time equivalencies.
“The board of trustees chose to retain the mental support team model, as the mental health of students and staff is a high priority,” officials said. “In addition, they chose to continue offering a robust pre-Kindergarten program.”
