CBE warns of shortfall

A top official with the city’s public school board revealed Friday the district could face a massive shortfall, and be forced to draw on its reserves if provincial funding doesn’t keep pace with student enrolment in the March 26 budget.

“Within the system we’ve been talking about $30 million to $100 million ... that’s the likeliest sort of range,” Brad Grundy, chief financial officer for the Calgary Board of Education, told reporters Friday.

“We’ve got musings from the premier, the minister of finance and others, but nothing hard,” Grundy said. “So we’ve just been planning on it’s going to be somewhere in this range.”

For weeks, Alberta’s public sector has been girding for deep cuts after Finance Minister Robin Campbell announced in February the Tory government is looking to cut spending by 5 per cent and won’t match the rate of inflation, plus population growth, which results in a 9 per cent cut.

Student enrolment at the CBE reached 114,500 last fall.

The board now forecasts enrolment to grow about 2.1 per cent, or 2,500 new students, this fall and will hit 127,695 by the 2019 school year.

While the CBE saw its overall funding increase roughly 3.6 per cent in last year’s budget, per student funding continued to slide to $9,783, down from $10,077 in 2011.

“If the government funds enrolment ... at the same rate as last year we’re looking at a $30 million gap,” said Grundy. “If we don’t get funded for enrolment you’re probably looking at another $20 million ... and if we actually get a rate reduction then you’re looking at tens of millions more.”

The CBE, which receives 92 per cent of its funding from the province, spends about $986.2 million, or 79 per cent, of its funding on staff salaries, wages and benefits.

“If the rumoured ( budget) numbers are what the rumoured numbers are, there will be impacts on staffing,” Grundy said Friday.

The CBE issued dire predictions of a deficit last year, but later posted a $9.1 million surplus for the 201314 fiscal year, a feat accomplished as revenue surged with student numbers and by spending less on staff and busing.

Further encumbering the school board is the likelihood of a spring election, which could be called shortly after the provincial budget is tabled, said Grundy.

“If the election comes and the budget dies, then we’ll be looking to the province for some direction on, ‘How firm are your numbers?,’” he said.