Border Land School Division is slashing $1.4 million in spending for 2018/19.

About $355,000 in provincial funding cuts in the face of ever-increasing expenses has forced the Board of Trustees to propose a reduced budget of $35.3 million for the upcoming school year.

BLSD Secretary-Treasurer, Rachel GeirnaertRachel Geirnaert, Secretary-Treasurer for BLSD, noted that the Division will also comply with the province's suggestion to limit special requirement increases to a maximum two percent. She said this will generate a mere extra $400,000 in tax revenues over the current year, and paired with the provincial funding cuts, will make it difficult to balance the books.

"We had set a budget which we thought would be reasonable, it was right around a two percent increase based on some of the cost-of-living increases. However, when the mandate came down from the province we ended up looking at one-point-four million dollars in cuts."

Geirnaert added there are some budget items that are non-negotiable despite a teacher wage freeze, such as grid increases for staff.

"As well as we have a bit of an anomaly year this year in which we have more confirmed maternity leaves, and the teachers have negotiated top-up in their contracts, and so we need to budget for the staff that we realize are going to be off tending to their new families."
    
Superintendent Krista Curry said officials did everything they could to make sure the cuts wouldn't impact programs and services, adding the cost-savings won't be noticed in day-to-day operations.

"A lot of it was trimming here-and-there. Getting more accurate budget numbers in terms of salaries as opposed to using averages," she explained. "We certainly withdrew some maintenance things, we are going to reduce a couple of bus routes (and) we removed the Board/Admin Retreat."

In the world of technology, Curry said the Division has moved from a 4-year equipment refresh to a 5-year rotation.

"We asked all of our departments to go through their budgets with a fine-toothed comb and say what are the wants and what are the needs," she noted.

Curry admitted there are also some proposed staff reductions for schools with declining enrolment, however, she said the cuts wouldn't be significant.

Meantime, there was some discussion that took place at a public consultation hosted by Border Land School Division on Wednesday.

"I think this is the most discussion that I've had a public consultation meeting since I've been in Border Land," said Curry.

The goal of the evening was to gauge priorities among stakeholders as the Board finalizes budget deliberations for 2018/19.

The Board ended the meeting by leaving stakeholders to ponder two questions and submit additional feedback at a later date. Curry noted these questions are available for anyone in the public to consider and send back their thoughts.

The questions are:
1) When you think about the cuts happening in the school division - what is important to you to remain in your community school?

2) Are there any areas where you believe we should be looking to cut further?

BLSD will finalize its 2018/19 budget in the coming week.