Column by Andrew Stuckey – Osoyoos Daily News
Okanagan Similkameen trustees this week will get a first public look at a proposed budget for the 2016-17 school year.
Yet, with so much uncertainty surrounding the school district in the wake of its (still ongoing) decision to close Osoyoos Secondary, one has to wonder if the budget they’ll be looking at today will resemble the budget they’ll be approving later this spring.
In fact, Secretary-Treasurer Lynda Minnabarriet says as much herself in a memo that accompanies the budget document.
To quote Ms. Minnabarriet, “Following the April 27 board decision regarding the closure of Osoyoos Secondary School, further budget decisions will be determined.”
Here’s what we do know
•The District is projecting 39 less students district-wide in 2016/17 than at the beginning of 2015/16. According to another document to be presented at the regular board meeting Wednesday, that includes 17 fewer students at South Okanagan Secondary School. (Osoyoos Secondary is projected to be down two and Similkameen Secondary down three.)
•Ministry of Education operational grant funding for the budget year is projected to be $23.12 million, down from $23.29 million in 2015/16.
•Total operating revenues — that means all the money the District can use to fund its services — are down $205,000.
•Total operating expenses, on the other hand, are higher — up $79,000 from last year.
•When the District ponders its net expenses (operating and capital costs), it expects a deficit of $901,000. According to the budget document that means the District will consume almost its entire savings this year.
And here’s what we can deduce:
•It appears the District is planning an educational administrative hire. There is a substantial increase in educational administration costs — up $132,008 — that doesn’t seem to coincide with any related decrease in instructional, governance or business administration costs.
•The District will make less use of educational assistants and substitute teachers.
•Total salaries for principals and vice-principals will increase about $67,000 from last year.
•It’s unclear if the closing of Osoyoos Secondary is factored into operational costs. The District is projecting a $19,000 reduction in insurance and $74,000 reduction in utilities, but also is reducing student transportation costs by $18,000 this year.
There are many unanswered questions about the Osoyoos school closing the budget document could not begin to answer.
It cannot speak, for example, to the projected loss of Ministry of Education grant funding if Osoyoos secondary students determine to leave the District en masse.
According to the budget document, the District receives about $10,300 per pupil in total operational grant funding (from the Ministry of Education. With an expectation an unknown number of Osoyoos Secondary School students would determine not to transfer to South Okanagan Secondary next September but rather seek educational opportunities elsewhere, the District can expect to lose up to $360,000 in funding.
Funding Protection would ensure the District was protected against any funding decline larger than 1.5%.
The simple solution to this loss of revenue, you might say, is to reduce teaching positions. However, according to information provided to parents at an orientation session held April 20 at South Okanagan Secondary School, almost all of the Osoyoos Secondary teachers are guaranteed positions next year in Oliver, no matter how many students follow them.
With instructional costs being by far the largest budget line item for the District — at more than $19 million — and teacher salaries accounting for about half of that, one has to wonder where the District would cut to ensure a balanced budget.
The budget also puts colour — and not a good one — to a Town of Osoyoos proposal to seek $352,000 a year over the next three years in local grant funding to assist the District with its budget concerns.
There appears to be little effort on the part of the District to reduce operational costs — especially at the administration office level. In the early days of the school closing consultation, the Board asked parents and others to identify potential costs savings. The parents dutifully complied and identified upwards of $600,000 in such savings.
None of that appears to be reflected in the budget. Instead, District administration costs are up at least $30,000 (on top of the administrative hire) from the 2015/16 budget.
Why, Town councilors — and an Osoyoos electorate — should be asking themselves, would the Osoyoos community assist a school district that doesn’t appear to be serious about helping itself?
Perhaps the answers will present themselves as the budget is explained this week at several meetings.
More likely, though, the only thing that will become clear is there is yet more evidence the District has moved way too quickly on the Osoyoos school-closing decision.