The chair of the Rainbow District School Board said she finds it “disconcerting” the board is looking at cutting 45 positions, but adds the move is necessary to balance its 2013-2014 budget.
Board staff tabled a balanced $172-million budget at a May 21 policy and finance committee meeting.
It shows a decrease of 12 elementary teachers, 20 secondary teachers, two school administrators, 9.5 educational assistants and two other unspecified positions.
“They're all valuable staff members, and very worthwhile positions,” said Doreen Dewar. “They're all equally disturbing to lose.”
She said she's hopeful most of the cuts can be made through attrition.
While the board is cutting some positions, it's also adding six early childhood educators and one mental health leader.
Last month, the board revealed its enrolment projections are down about 570 students for the 2013-2014 school year.
The board normally loses about 250 students a year, which it attributes to a declining birth rate in the province, meaning next year's enrolment loss is more than two times higher than usual.
Because enrolment is tied to government grants, the board has to make job cuts, Rainbow board director of education Norm Blaseg told Northern Life last month. If they didn't, they'd run a $6-million deficit.
He's blaming the higher-than-expected enrolment decline on a provincewide labour dispute that resulted in English public elementary and secondary teachers withdrawing from extracurricular and other voluntary activities.
Dewar said she agrees with Blaseg on this point.
Perhaps some of these parents will come back to the Rainbow system now that the teachers' boycott has ended, and there will be an influx of unexpected students come September, she said.
That would also mean the board could recall some of the staff members they're being forced to cut, Dewar said.
Unions representing Rainbow board teachers disagree with the assertion that the labour dispute caused the enrolment drop, saying that declining enrolment is a fact of life across the province.
Rainbow board staff did “a wonderful amount of work” to come through with a balanced budget, Dewar said. Budget deliberations continue June 11, and the board is expected to approve a final budget on July 2.
“Every year we face the possibility that maybe we will have difficulty reaching that balanced budget,” she said.
“But yes, we've done very well by it. The other trustees were all very vocal in their appreciation for a balanced budget.”
Blaseg said the board has significantly reduced its expenditures over the past two years.
“These savings, coupled with the declining enrolment grant that we received this year, enabled us to align our expenditures to meet our revenue,” he said.
“We have achieved a balanced budget while continuing to invest in programs for students, such as full-day, everyday junior kindergarten. We also remain committed to the revitalization of Rainbow schools, including construction of the new MacLeod Public School, which is currently underway.”
