Budget increases for Leth. School District

More students means budget increases for Lethbridge School District No. 51.

Mark DeBoer, LSD51 Director of Finance, said the budget will be increasing by 2.46 per cent for the 2018-19 Preliminary Budget to $131.72 million.

The bulk of that funding will come from the province.

“The majority of our funding is coming from our funded enrolment growth from the province,” said DeBoer. “Ninetythree per cent of all our funding comes from the province.”

Lethbridge is approaching 100,000 residents and is the fifth fastest growing city in Canada, according to the 2016 Government of Canada census.

LSD51 serves 11,601 students from early education (pre-school) to Grade 12. The amount represents an increase of about 3.37 per cent.

High-level revenue sources include the Classroom Improvement Fund, which included a slight increase this year over last year, and the Program Unit Funding for Kindergarten, which has increased based on enrolment numbers.

One of the largest expenditures for the division is staffing. This year, there has been an increase of 22.8 full-time equivalents (FTE) for teachers for a total of 623 FTE. In addition, there has been an increase of 15.4 FTE for support staff for a total of 529.

“That’s tied to enrolment growth,” said DeBoer. “We’re having more kids in classrooms, so we need more teachers and more support.”

Another reason for staff increases is the opening of the Senator Joyce Fairbairn school, which will include administrative needs in addition to teachers and support staff.

An open house event for the budget was planned for Tuesday night in order to inform the community and to collect feedback going into the LSD51 Board of Trustee budget meeting next week.

“We’re doing something new with bigger budget boards that give a lot more detail on the budget,” said DeBoer.”People can read the boards at their leisure and ask questions where they want more details if possible.”

There will also be time to provide additional input online until Friday.

“The feedback we receive from the public will be presented to the Board of Trustees for their May 28 board meeting to debate and potentially approve the budget,” DeBoer said.

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