PRSD looks to balance its budgets before reserves tapped out

By Tim Kalinowski on January 18, 2018.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

The Prairie Rose School Division board of trustees passed a motion at last Tuesday’s public meeting empowering superintendent Roger Clarke to initiate actions to achieve a balanced or near balanced budget by the start of the next school year.

The division has run deficits five of the past seven years, and has been relying on accumulated reserves to offset them. With an anticipated $750,000 deficit this year, Clarke says the division has reached a point where reserves have become too depleted to not consider some form of cutbacks.

“There is still some reserve dollars there, but if you have a $1.5-million reserve and you have a deficit of $100,000 or $200,000, you can absorb that,” he says. “It’s not a problem today, but in terms of having many more years of $750,000 deficit budgets, we wouldn’t be able to do it. We could probably do two years at $750,000, but that’s it. We would then be tapped out.”

Clarke says almost everything will be on the table for consideration as budget decisions get made over the next few months.

“We are going to look at everything,” he says. “I do think we can get to a balanced budget without dramatic changes to the organization and our schools.”

Clarke expects many of those decisions will also mean making some difficult choices.

“We can find efficiencies,” he explains. “We can look at what we allocate for dollars to buy supplies at schools. Maybe instead of contracting IMR (maintenance) dollars out, we can find more ways to do those services in house … There are a number of different levers. However, I will say we’ll also have to look at potential cuts on the staffing side. I don’t think it would be drastic, but you have to look at it.”

One thing not on the table at this time is school closures, says Clarke.

“The board hasn’t given me any direction to look at that at all,” he states.

Clarke also stresses no decisions have been made yet on any cuts, and he is hoping the entire division can work together to bring the PRSD’s deficit under control.

“It means everybody has got to tighten the belt a little in order to make that happen,” says Clarke. “But in a budget that’s over $50 million, and you’ve got to find $750,000, it should be doable if we all do the heavy lifting together.”

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