The Qualicum School District’s budget of $72.5 million has been approved by the Board of Education.
Trustees needed an extra budget meeting since there were difficult decisions to make, including cuts to make up for a $498,000 shortfall.
Rising costs prompted the school district to make those cuts, including to learning services (educational assistants and child and youth care workers) of $107,000, the international student program ($50,000), school administration assistants ($35,000) and the elimination of the summer works crew ($150,000).
Trustees voted on the budget cuts with the hope that more funding will become available in the fall.
“I would hope that in September if the money comes back, if we get some money back, that the EAs (educational assistants) would be — that those 56 hours would be put back into the system,” said Trustee Carol Kellogg during a special budget meeting on April 29
At the April 23 meeting, trustees discussed and ultimately voted against the budget, so the special meeting was scheduled.
READ MORE: Qualicum School District looks at $500K budget shortfall amid rising costs
A balanced budget must be submitted to the education ministry by the end of June.
Once submitted, the school district will wait and see what the fall enrolment numbers are, which will generate grant recalculations, according to secretary-treasurer Ron Amos.
The total increase in the school district’s committed costs is about $1.6 million, with a funding shortfall of approximately $236,000, plus additional requests including $262,000 for needs response team (NRT) funding and teacher staffing, according to Amos.
The NRT structure is designed to provide teachers a way of engaging with colleagues to “support inclusion, common assessments, Indigenous content and strategies to integrate core competencies,” according to a document written by Peter Jory, superintendent of schools.