The Lethbridge School Division office (Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Lethbridge School Division sees overall increase of $1.3 million dollars for 2020-2021 year

Mar 2, 2020 | 12:41 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Lethbridge School Division (LSD) will see a small boost in funding from last week’s provincial budget.

However, the funding doesn’t necessarily translate to a lot of money to play around with.

Superintendent of Schools Cheryl Gilmore said on Monday that the LSD’s funding for the 2020-2021 school year will be $111.3 million, up about $1.3 million from the 2019-2020 budget of $110 million.

Gilmore explained that $1 million of the additional funding is strictly set aside for facilities’ operations and maintenance, which cannot be moved around, leaving roughly $300,000 for instructional supports and services.

This may seem like a decent chunk of funding, but Gilmore said there are some elements to consider.

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“Last year [during] the mid-year budget adjustment, we lost $5 million in class size funding and we also were provided with some transition funding [$2 million],” she said.

“So [in] November of this current school year, the Board and the district had to find $3 million to keep operations the same as is and as we’re operating this year, and the Board was successful in doing that, primarily through accessing reserves.”

She explained that the division moves into the 2020-2021 year with that budget adjustment, which means they need to plan for and account for the $3 million taken out of reserves for the current on-going school year.

“As well, we have to account for and think for and plan for the additional students that will be in the system that are not accounted for in terms of funding,” she said.

“We’ll have 230 more students than we are being funded for, so we need to think about carefully what that will look like in terms of how we structure our programs and services and how we ensure that our classrooms are able to give the quality kinds of delivery that they’re doing now.”

Gilmore added another factor they’ll need to consider is the regional collaborative service model, which was created and was responsible for delivering services and supports for students with complex needs.

“That budget has been collapsed, or that structure has been collapsed and the budget into school jurisdiction funding. That’s not to say there’s a pocket of funding for that in our budget,” she said.

“What the province is saying is you now have broader areas or broader pillars of funding and so now within that, you need to navigate or figure out how you’ll provide those services.”

The regional collaborative service model was funded at $3.4 million, split between divisions in southwestern Alberta. Jurisdictions will have to account for the loss of services.

“What that will look like in terms of what the cost will be to the Lethbridge school Division specifically, we don’t know yet,” Gilmore said.

“So we’ve got, of course the $3 million of what I would call a sort of shortfall in funding that we made up with in reserves last year to account for again in this upcoming school year, as well as 230 more students and of course those specialized programs and services that were delivered by a collaborative group.”

She said the LSD will have to be “very focused and purposeful” in terms of what they’re budget planning will look like, in light of the new funding model.

The Board will be meeting for a retreat to discuss the budget this Thursday and Friday.

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