File photo of sign outside the Lethbridge School Division office (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Lethbridge School Division to face financial challenge in 2020/2021

May 20, 2020 | 11:58 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The Lethbridge School Division (LSD) is preparing to work with a smaller operating budget going into the 2020/2021 school year.

On Tuesday evening, the LSD presented its preliminary operating budget for 2020/2021. The budget shows revenues and allocations for $132.55 million.

That’s an approximate decrease of $1.445 million from the 2019/2020 operating budget.

The LSD stated that due to the 1.08 percent decrease in overall funding, just over $817,500 in reserves will be utilized next year.

“We have to go back to this current school year and what happened in October, with the significant loss of funding that we had to adjust for mid-year, and that significant loss of funding for us was $3.5 million,” said Superintendent of Schools Cheryl Gilmore.

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: December 30 - January 5, 2025

1h ago

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: December 16-22, 2024

Dec 17, 2024

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: December 9-15, 2024

Dec 10, 2024

“We adjusted for that this current school year [by] withdrawing from reserves and planning for some efficiencies.”

Superintendent of Schools Cheryl Gilmore (Lethbridge News Now)

Gilmore did note, however, that the LSD will see a $2.29 million increase in operating revenues, which is primarily for the area of plant operations and maintenance.

“[That’s] facilities, things like minor repairs and maintenance to facilities, caretaking, your heat and electricity and so forth, as well as a modest increase to transportation.”

However, in the prior school year, the LSD used $4.55 million of one-time reserves to minimize mid-year disruptions to classrooms, programs and services.

Gilmore noted that the funding for plant operations and maintenance, as well as for transportation, cannot be moved into different portfolios – such as the instructional budget.

She said they’re set to face some challenges for the instructional budget, which supports staffing and resources for schools.

“When you take away what we lost last year, we’re looking at a couple million dollars that we need to find in the instructional portion of our budget,” she said.

“We’ve done our best to find efficiencies and we’ve taken $817,000 from our reserves to put into the instructional budget.”

She said the LSD’s teaching staff will see a reduction of 3.8 FTE (full-time equivalent) positions, with support staff to be reduced by 40.9 FTE.

Of those support staff, educational assistants will account for 30.9 FTE.

LSD notes that most of the staffing reductions will impact elementary schools, where enrollment is anticipated to drop by 55 students.

At the elementary level, there will be a decrease of 4.65 FTE teachers.

Middle school and high school levels are expected to see small increases in the number of FTE teaching positions, based on an increase in enrollment numbers.

“I think what’s important to know is that another significant impact on the instructional business, it gets complicated, is what’s called the Weighted Moving Average,” she said.

“[That’s] where they take the three years of your student enrollment and give you the average of those three years. So, for districts that are declining in enrollment, that certainly serves them well for predictability and buffers them because they get more money than their actual student enrollment.”

She said this is a disadvantage for districts such as the Lethbridge School Division because they get funded for less students than they actually have.

“For next school year, we are projecting a 270 student increase…but with the Weighted Moving Average, we’re only being funded for 50 of those students, so we have an additional 220 students in the system that we’re not getting the per people funding for and so those have to be absorbed into the current funding that we have.”

Administrative expenses are slated to drop from $4.25 million in 2019/2020 to $4.1 million in 2020/2021, which equals a 3.8 percent reduction in administration. The LSD said administrative costs account for 3.09 percent of next year’s budget, compared to 3.17 percent this school year.

More than 93 percent of the Division’s funding comes from the Government of Alberta. The remaining seven percent is comprised of school fees, school-generated funds, outside grants, investment revenues and one-time reserve funds.

Gilmore said there is a lot of uncertainty ahead due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.

As for how lessons will be delivered next school year, she said right now it appears as though a blended model of in-person and remote classroom delivery could be an option, but any final decisions on that will be guided by the provincial government.