Medicine Hat Catholic School Board secretary-treasurer Greg MacPherson says the division will run a deficit this year but only as a contingency as requested by the government.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education was presented with a few challenges when drafting and approving its 2020-21 budget, but secretary treasurer Greg MacPherson is pleased with how it managed to navigate the circumstances.
MacPherson says the budget – approved in a Wednesday board meeting – originally contained a surplus of $217,000, with usable reserves of $397,000. However, the Ministry of Education recommended that boards request additional reserve spending in case the division exceeds its budgeted spending. Due to this suggestion, MacPherson says MHCBE set contingency spending at $614,000, resulting in a deficit of $397,000.
“It is a deficit of $397,000, but we can manage that with the use of reserves,” said MacPherson. “We do have to seek Ministerial approval this time to access the reserves, but that does leave us with about $460,000 within the restricted reserve and about $250,000 in the capital reserve, so there are funds available.”
MacPherson added the $614,000 set aside for contingency spending – such as class-size changes or circumstances brought on by the reopening of schools following the COVID-19 pandemic – can be returned to the reserves if it is not used.
“In the event those pressures do not materialize – and we’re hoping they don’t – then what we can do is just take that money and move it back into the reserve,” he said. “But at least we have the money earmarked and set aside for dealing with those potential pressures.”
Overall expenditures increased by $1.14 million, though $614,000 of the increase is due to contingency spending and $507,000 is the result of increased Infrastructure Maintenance and Renewal.
Overall revenues increased by $1.4 million to $33.5 million, or 4.5 per cent, due largely to $866,000 in new bridge funding and the bump of $507,000 in IMR grants.
The 2020-21 budget is the first using new provincial funding models, which drastically change how schools are funded, including a shift from funding actual enrolment to a weighted moving average and changing how programs are defined and funded, particularly Program Unit Funding.
“The new funding model has a variety of different aspects of it, which are quite frankly large changes to how we were previously doing them,” said MacPherson. “The weighted moving average is, instead of getting funded exclusively on our Sept. 30 numbers – so whoever is in our school on Sept. 30 gets funding – we are now moving to a process where they look at a three-year average and you’re funded based on what those numbers are.”
PUF was reduced by $929,000 year-to-year, and redefined to include only pre-kindergarten children and not kindergarten students. Uncertificated staffing was cut by $342,000 as a result of the reduction, while funding for supplies, services and contracts dropped by $339,000. Eliminating a transfer of $248,000 to preschool to support full-day programming for eligible PUF children accounted for the remainder. However, as MacPherson points out, many supports that were previously under PUF are now funded under learning services, which saw an overall increase of $713,000.
“Those are reductions within PUF, but those kindergarten kids are now funded under a different group, and that’s under learning services. The uncertificated costs in learning services increased by $410,000,” said MacPherson. “Some of the restrictions we had on PUF previously – we called it enveloped funding, it can only be spent on those students – have been relaxed so we have a little more flexibility in terms of how we’re using those funds. That being said, it is lower than what we had last year, but the number of students that we’re supporting with those funds are also reduced.”
Certificated staffing increased by 2.51 full-time equivalent positions to 134.2, while MacPherson says uncertificated support staff positions dropped by around 12 to 149.9. The average salary for certificated teachers fell by 3.74 per cent – from $93,844 to $90,331 – due to savings on retirements. Uncertificated staffing salaries increased by $41,000, which includes staff salary adjustments.
“When you look at our support staff within in the learning services environment – that would encompass learning service, PUF, the early education program – based on the budget we’re about 12 FTE lower,” said MacPherson.
Enrolment is expected to increase by 2.28 per cent to 2,692 students, however due to the weighted moving average, the effects of the enrolment changes will not be seen until the 2021-22 budget.
