School District 46 (SD46) will have a little bit of money to play with in next year's budget thanks to some holdback funds recently released by the Ministry of Education.
"A combination of prudent fiscal planning by government and accurate enrolment predictions by school districts means more money is available for every district. In December, districts received an additional $88 per student, and we are now able to add a further $15 to support each full-time equivalent student enrolled in the B.C. public school system," a press release from the Ministry of Education said.
Secretary-treasurer for SD46 Diane Ready said the holdback funds equal about $48,000 for SD46. Of that money, approximately $23,000 will be used to pay for property insurance premiums next year. The fee is a new expense for SD46 as the Ministry previously covered that expense.
"What the Ministry said on May 11 was that school districts would in future be paying for property insurance that used to be paid by the province and that will result in approximately an extra $23,000 cost to SD46 per year and its not optional. It was just an announcement," Ready said.
She said that the Ministry has told SD46 they will subtract the $23,000 fee from the $48,000 holdback funds to pay for the property insurance on their behalf next year.
"So that leaves us approximately $25,000. The way that's dealt with, accounting wise, is it will just fall to our bottom line at year end and the board will have the opportunity to decide what to do with it in 2011/12," she said.
Although the extra $25,000 is a welcome addition to the budget Ready notes a decision on how to spend the money doesn't have to happen right away.
"In the scheme of things on a $36 million budget, I'm not diminishing the amount, $25,000 is a lot of money, but it's not something that we would stop the operation and call a board meeting and figure out what to do with it," she said. "It all nets out to good news in the end and we'll see how it all falls out at the bottom line and if we have an additional unrestricted surplus at the end of the year, then the board has the opportunity to revisit the budget later this year."
