BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK — Although the decrease is going to be offset by increased enrolment in Vista Virtual School, community schools within the Pembina Hills School Division are projected to lose the equivalent of 217.5 FTE students in the 2022-2023 school year.
That was arguably the most shocking take-away from the 2022-2023 budget presentation delivered to Pembina Hills trustees at their May 25 meeting, which was hosted at Eleanor Hall School in Clyde.
According to a chart presented to trustees, enrolment is expected to drop at nearly every community school by an overall 6.1 per cent, with the largest decreases occurring at R.F. Staples School and Westlock Elementary School.
The only exceptions are Dunstable School and the Pibroch Colony School, which will see a slight increase in enrolment over the 2021-2022 school year.
The Barrhead Leader reached out to secretary-treasurer Heather Nanninga after the meeting to inquire about the enrolment drop.
Nanninga replied in an e-mail that COVID-19 has made enrolments at community schools very challenging to predict from year to year.
“Over the course of pandemic, several families have either enrolled their children in online schools or have opted to home-school, and while some of them have come back to our regular classrooms, not all of them have,” she said.
“Our principals generally made conservative estimates for the upcoming year, so we certainly hope that our actual enrolments will be a bit higher than forecasted.”
Otherwise, the 2022-2023 budget is relatively in good shape, despite projecting an estimated deficit of $2.5 million, which is a deliberate move in order to draw down reserves.
Nanninga has previously warned trustees that the province is making noise about decreasing the reserves held by school jurisdictions, so the division is aiming to have only 3.35 per cent of operating expenses held in reserves.
As such, the division is dipping into its reserves by $2.5 million in order to support a variety of targeted projects addressing pandemic-related learning losses, curriculum development and staffing.
Revenue in the coming school year is projected to be $65.395 million, including a total allocation from the Alberta government of $62.6 million. Notably, that is an increase of roughly $1.5 million from the previous year.
That funding hike includes a one per cent increase to base instructional grants, a 4.6 per cent increase to transportation grants, a one per cent increase to operations and maintenance grants and a $170,000 decrease to Capital Maintenance Renewal (CMR) grants, which are utilized by the facilities department.
One change that is sizeable in terms of the amount allocated, though relatively small in the scope of the entire budget, is a 9.8 per cent decrease in the SuperNet grant.
Pembina Hills is slated to receive $155,871 for SuperNet in 2022-2023, which is down nearly $17,000 from the amount they received in 2021-2022.
Nanninga explained that because Pembina Hills closed down the Vista Virtual office in Edmonton last summer, the division will have one less site to connect to, so their grant funding went down proportionately.
“Our expenses will (also) be down by the same amount,” she said.
Revenue from fees is projected to be down by more than $190,000 from the previous year, while revenue from sales of services is projected to be up by around $500,000.
Expenses are coming in at $67.895 million, an increase of more than $3 million from the 2021-2022 year. (This is a budgeted amount; actual expenses from 2021-2022 may be different, as the audited financial statements won’t be presented until later this year.)
Notably, instruction costs are going up, as Pembina Hills will be adding 7.5 FTE (full-time equivalent) staff and the average cost per teacher will be going up by $800. They will also be adding 13 uncertificated FTE staff.
Transportation costs are also shooting up due to high fuel prices; the 2022-2023 budget accounts for an extra $160,000 to be spent purely on fuel.
The price of purchasing buses is also increasing slightly from $125,000 per unit in 2021-2022 to $132,000 in 2022-2023.
By Aug. 31, 2023, the division is projected to have 3.03 per cent of operating expenses held within reserves, which will meet its own target.
