School District No. 46 (SD46) announced Tuesday they will spend nearly $1.2 million on a district-wide enhancement plan that includes money for health and safety, technology, training, facility improvements, international education and direct school allocations.
The money comes from the district's $1.8 million unrestricted school surplus. The expenditure was approved by the school board Feb. 14 at their regular board meeting, as part of the passing of the district's amended annual budget.
"In terms of having a plan for this unrestricted surplus, we wanted to focus on the mission and strategic plan as much as possible, maintain our focus on student achievement and leadership and focus on fiscal sustainability, obviously," said secretary treasurer Nicholas Weswick.
He noted the plan avoids as much as possible hiring staff to deliver programs because the funding will be gone next year.
"It's like a piggy bank where we have X amount of dollars - this $1.2 million that we want to push out into the schools - and once it's gone, it's gone. We were very conscious that this plan avoid as much as possible significant layoffs due to one year staffing increases," Weswick said.
In the category of health and safety, $91,950 will be spent to develop a comprehensive district safety plan, develop a joint health and safety committee and purchase emergency preparedness supplies for all schools in need of them.
Under the heading of technology, the plan calls for $180,000 to be spent upgrading the wireless access and bandwidth in SD46, as well as giving out funds through specific school equity technology grants this year.
A total of $378,720 will go to training and collaboration in the district. Things like student services staff training, a leadership program and a professional learning community initiative will use this funding.
The facilities and district fleet will receive $140,000 to go towards green energy initiatives, maintenance and replacement of vehicles, new equipment purchases and school cosmetic enhancements.
International education program development, staffing and promotional materials will be financed with $105,000 in the plan, and $285,000 will go to direct school allocations to help with high-need students, maintaining district class sizes and school-based decision making.
Weswick said SD46 has been meeting with stakeholders and talking about how to use the funding for some time.
"Since before I started here, the conversations have been taking place about how best to address the unrestricted surplus," he said. "I know the teachers' association actually had a link on their website to help inform our decision."
Weswick said the $1.8 million unrestricted surplus is largely made up of "unexpected revenue."
"The Ministry issued a large hold back. We also make an estimate for salaries based on average costs, and when the actual salaries come in they are either higher or lower so in this particular year, they were lower than expected, which gave us a bit more surplus to work with," Weswick said.
He said the leftover surplus funding will be held in the unrestricted surplus fund to guard against unexpected funding shortfalls in the future.
