MHCBE expecting $525K deficit

By Tim Kalinowski on November 28, 2017.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

It’s a good news/bad news situation for local Catholic schools according to the MHCBE’s 2017-2018 Fall Budget Update tabled at Monday’s public meeting.

On one hand, with all the numbers now in from the 2016/2017 school year, last year’s operating deficit was reduced from about $317,000 to a much more palatable $197,105. Unfortunately, on the other hand, this year’s projected deficit of $204,982, (anticipated in the spring budget update), could exceed $525,000 by year’s end.

The reason for the $320,000 higher-than-projected deficit is mainly due to greater costs than anticipated in school-based budgets, (which were about $581,000 over budget). This category includes things like the costs of nutrition programs, school fees and learning assistants in classrooms.

Greater-than-projected costs in administration, ($70,000 over), and in the capital expenditures and financing category, (about $212,000 over budget), accounted for the rest. Cost-savings in other budget categories and greater-than-anticipated revenue helped to avoid and even larger deficit.

Many deficits recorded on the expense side of ledger could also be accounted for by less-than-anticipated funding coming from the province, explained MHCBE finance staff.

According to statistics provided to trustees by assistant secretary-treasurer Amanda McCrie on Monday, it now costs MHCBE an average of $13,213 to educate one student on a yearly basis, but the funding coming from the provincial government adds up to only about $12,079, a deficit per student of $1,134 multiplied over the entire school district.

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