More time is needed to figure out the preliminary budget for the 2025/26 school year, School District 72 says.
The board will now need to wait until June 17 to pass the preliminary budget, after the board failed to unanimously agree to pass it on May 27.
"At the last meeting, I brought a list of proposals for us, and we knew that this was going to be a tough year between declining enrolment, increasing costs, and no increases in funding. We knew that we started a budget year with a million (dollar) deficit, and it's been a tough year," said Kevin Patrick, the district's secretary-treasurer.
At the forefront of the budget's delayed passing are the reductions proposed to balance the budget, which is facing a $949,000 operating deficit.
"Whenever we have these types of reductions, we try to keep them away from positions, but this year, unfortunately, we knew that we were going to likely have to look at positions. We changed our budget process a bit, and we tried reaching out to stakeholders a lot earlier. What we did was actually create a proposal list and start to get feedback. We've been looking at the feedback for about two months. Based on the initial proposal list, we've been making modifications as we've gotten some feedback," said Patrick.
With the first round of feedback, Patrick said they reduced or removed one and a half positions. Both are teaching positions. Patrick said there wasn't much feedback from the second round but acknowledged some opposition to the proposal from teacher librarians. He also mentioned there were some comments about the proposed investment in tech.
READ MORE: School District 72 consider budget reductions for next school year
Some of the proposals surrounding those proposals have been further refined, and Patrick shared with the board what they were.
"We weren't able to remove or stop the proposal for the teacher librarians, but we did reduce it from five down to 4.4. We've basically added some teacher librarian time to the schools that will help with some of the positions and some of the staff that are in those positions," he said. "And what we ended up doing though is we have this position — it actually just has come in the last couple of days where we've got notifications that we do have a teaching position at school board office who will be resigning — So we've increased teacher librarian time, but we've unfortunately had to reduce another teaching position through attrition."
Patrick said he will bring a three-year plan to the next meeting, saying that if things don't change then the district will be looking at reductions in future years as well. He added that some of the things currently set in the preliminary budget may not be there in the next one.
"I guess the frustration that I have is that when good things are happening in the classroom, it's not a result of strategic planning. It's whatever the best part of the contract reads. If it's a strong part of the contract, then we don't cut there. So what it reaches down to is we're cutting parts of programs based on the strength of the contract, which is a really sad case, instead of actually physically saving what's best for the kids," said Trustee Daryl Hagan. "Balancing the budget is best for kids, in one way, but strategically speaking, I'd rather have the good things that are occurring in the classroom continue occurring."
Vice-chair Craig Gillis said balancing the budget has not been an easy undertaking, especially with working with less funding than the district would like to have.
"I believe from all our deliberations and from this information we've been given, that at least at this point, we are not having people who will lose jobs. I guess that's the important thing," he said.
While Patrick confirmed the positions will be displaced, the people affected will be transitioned into new roles, and SD72 will still employ them. Hagan said people will be losing their positions.
"We are cutting back by six or seven positions as it's proposed in the budget. As it stands, as you head down to the bottom of the list, there's going to be five positions gone. How that looks, I don't know," Hagan said. "You can't get $600,000 without some cuts happening."
Patrick confirmed the budget would have five fewer positions but has found those people new positions. Hagan said there will be somebody at the bottom who will be laid off due to the transitions.
At this point, chair Kat Eddy called for a motion for three readings, which failed to get an unanimous decision, meaning the budget could not be passed.
Feedback for the proposed budget can be submitted by email to Patrick's office until June 11 at 4 p.m.
