Mother Teresa School Grade 3 teacher Courtney Helmer reads along with one of her students. The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education was able to make up for a significant shortfall in provincial funding without reducing staff or program availability.--NEWS PHOTO JEREMY APPEL availability.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education has dipped into reserves to help plug a $1.3-million hole in its budget.
The shortfall is the result of the province eliminating base grant funding, which includes class size funding, as well as the classroom improvement fund and school fee replacement grant.
These grants totalled a loss of $1.8 million for the Catholic board, but the government provided $500,000 in one-time transition funding, in addition to other grants increased, which softened the blow.
Still, the board ended up with a $693,000 deficit that had to be addressed.
MHCBE secretary treasurer Greg MacPherson told the News that reserve funds allowed the board to stave off reducing staff or cutting back programs.
“We’re using the reserves that we have on hand to maintain the programs and staffing levels that we established for the start of the school year,” said MacPherson.
The board had a $1.3-million operating surplus, but just $477,000 was available as unrestricted funds.
“That’s before we plugged the hole. So at the end of the year, we expect to have $163,000,” MacPherson added.
Beyond these reserves, the board had lower-than-expected staffing costs due to retirements.
“Usually, entry-level staff are at a lower wage than seasoned staff, so that saved us about $230,000,” he said.
The board has had a one per cent enrolment increase over the past year, the funding for which “helped soften the impact of that base grant funding reduction,” MacPherson said.
Finally, the board used amortization from capital funds – to the tune of $249,000 – to find some increased savings, he said.
The MHCBE is waiting intently for the 2020 budget – which MacPherson says is due in February – to see what its next steps are.
