The fact that the Rainbow District School Board was able to pass a balanced $172-million 2013-2014 budget at its July 2 meeting is remarkable, given that not all boards have able to do so, the board's chair said.
A case in point is the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, which has run deficits for the last few school years, and is now trying to whittle down a $4.2-million accumulated deficit.
“It's been a difficult year,” said Doreen Dewar, Rainbow Board chair.
“As a result of a long-term planning, our budgets have come in balanced. When you're used to prioritizing and getting certain things done with limited funding, then you can kind of live within your means, if you have to.”
Balancing the books didn't come without a certain amount of budget wrangling.
The board revealed in May it was planning to cut 45 jobs — 12 elementary teachers, 20 secondary teachers, two school administrators and two other unspecified positions.
That's because the board's enrolment projections are down about 570 students for the 2013-2014 school year. Rainbow normally loses about 250 students a year, meaning the enrolment loss is more than two times higher than usual.
Because enrolment and the amount of government funds a board receives are tied together, the board said it had no choice but to make job cuts.
Norm Blaseg, the director of education for the Rainbow Board, blamed the situation on a province-wide labour dispute that resulted in English public elementary and secondary teachers withdrawing from extracurricular activities.
But there's some indication that the actual enrolment in schools this fall is shaping up to be higher than was originally projected, Blaseg said.
Although a formal count has yet to be completed, principals have told him that there's been a strong junior kindergarten enrolment. The secondary enrolments, however, are pretty much the same as was predicted in the spring.
As well, although he wasn't able to provide firm numbers, Blaseg said the board has been able to mitigate a number of the layoffs because there's been some retirements and maternity leaves.
Trustee Dena Morrison echoed Dewar's comments, saying she's proud the board has managed to avoid running a deficit.
“That's as a result of decisions that the board's made with the advice we've been getting from our senior staff,” she said.
“We've had to make some tough decisions over the last several years, but that has put us in this position of sustainability. So I'm very proud we've passed a balanced budget.”
