Members of the two English-language school boards in the Sudbury area are planning to dip into reserves to balance their budgets for the 2010-11 school year.

The Rainbow District School Board, which has a $172 million budget for the next school year, made the decision at its June 21 meeting to withdraw $4 million from its reserves.

“This is not a sustainable budget,” Tyler Campbell, chair of the Rainbow board, said in a press release. “We will have to reduce expenditures in 2011-2012.”

Campbell said the school board has declining enrolment, and that means less funding from the province.

The province has allocated funding for the introduction of the new early learning program in six Rainbow schools and the ongoing implementation of retrofits to achieve energy savings, the press release said.

But provincial support also declined in a number of areas.

Rainbow District School Board will lose $187,000 overall to operate its schools in 2010-2011 and another $286,000 in 2011-2012, according to the press release.

In addition, the school renewal grant has dropped to $2.9 million, which means the board will have less money to repair its aging infrastructure.

“We need to continue to maximize our resources to ensure we provide the best education possible for students in quality school facilities,” Campbell said.

The 2010-2011 budget includes the introduction of full day, every day junior kindergarten in all Rainbow Schools.

The board also approved funding to expand the communication system for parents in elementary schools, renew some computers for teachers, and upgrade the wireless network in secondary schools.

The Sudbury Catholic District School Board approved a $76 million budget for the 2010-11 school year at its June 22 meeting.

Board chair Jody Cameron told Northern Life his board used $600,000 from its reserves to balance the budget, but this is within the framework set out by the province.

This framework states that school boards should not use more than one per cent of their reserves to balance their budgets. He said the Sudbury Catholic District School Board will still have a reserve fund of about $2.1 million.

Like the Rainbow board, Cameron said the Catholic board dipped into its reserves partly because it is spending $600,000 for a new early learning program — bringing full-day junior kindergarten to all of its schools, as well as before and after school care at some sites. These programs are not fully funded by the province yet.

Cameron said the Catholic board is also struggling with declining enrolment.

“I think our enrolment declined by approximately 100 students this year,” he said. “That has a net impact on funding of somewhere in the neighbourhood of $900,000. But it balances out because you don’t need as many teachers.”

Three teachers’ positions and one principal’s position were eliminated through attrition to save money. The board has also decided not to fill a vacant superintendent’s position.

Cameron said the school board will be in a better financial position at this time next year.

“We’ll be getting additional dollars for the early learning program that we’re not getting this year,” he said.

“Also, because we’ve done an accommodation review in the south-central planning area, and closed three schools there, we’re going save approximately $700,000. We will realize those savings next year. We’ll be in a much better position to address any budget shortfalls due to declining enrolment.”

Le Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario approved its 2010-11 budget June 22.

School board spokesperson Paul de la Riva said the school board’s $114 million budget actually has a predicted surplus of $553,000. The school board did not have to dip into their reserve fund to balance the budget.

“It’s just sound management,” he said.

The other school board operating in the Sudbury area, le Conseil scolaire public du Grand Nord de l’Ontario, did not get back to Northern Life at press time about the status of their budget.