The Lethbridge School Division has just submitted its preliminary 2023/24 budget to Alberta Education, ending an extensive process that began with a town hall in February.
“The total budget for this year, (is around) $141 million,” said director of finance Avice DeKelver. “It’s a big amount of money so there’s a lot of moving parts.”
New to this year’s discussions was the implementation of an engagement survey, a tool to gauge input on the instruction area of the budget. It garnered more than 400 responses.
The public division is now Lethbridge’s fourth-largest employer, with around 77 per cent of expenditures goes toward staffing.
DeKelver said one key highlight is the inclusion of counselling and wellness supports in the budget.
“Last year we had addressed that through one-time reserve funding, so now this year we’ve actually built it into the budget to make sure that it’s addressed and it’s funded going forward,” she explained.
But their work wasn’t without its challenges. The province’s Weighted Moving Average framework, which was introduced in 2020, impacts the division’s funding due to the estimative nature of the system.
The majority of funding comes from the Government of Alberta.
“They take 20 per cent from two years ago, 30 per cent for the enrollment for this current year, 2022/23, and 50 per cent for the projections for 2023/24,” she explained.
“It used to be in the past that every single student that you had on Sept. 30 was fully funded, and now the new system means that you have students that aren’t fully funded,” added incoming Supt. Mike Nightingale. “That creates significant challenges for us especially as we’re a growing school division.”
The division said it is short on funding for the equivalent of 170.5 students. It’s expected to see significant growth in high school student populations.
DeKelber added there were areas where the province increased funding for schools in its last budget, and others such as the COVID grants that have been eliminated.
“We went up in one area, but they decreased in another area. So it’s very much a status quo budget.”
DeKelver added that it’s the division’s job to ensure the needed areas all get a “piece of the pie.”
The Holy Spirit Catholic School Division, also primarily located in Lethbridge, was not available for comment on its budget Wednesday.
According to the executive summary of its operating budget documents, there isn’t sufficient funding “to support current increases in costs including salary increases and grid movement for teachers and support staff, benefits costs, insurance, utilities, and other software licensing costs.”
The approximate shortfall of $1.9 million will be mitigated by reducing several areas, including contracts and supplies, programs and staff.
Peter Wright, secretary-treasurer with the Westwind School Division, said that division’s numbers are looking good.
“All in all, it was a good news budget for us as far as the dollars that were needed,” Wright said.
The Palliser Division told Global News it will release its operating budget publicly on June 13.
Minor updates can be made to budgets once finalized enrollment numbers are available at the end of September.