SD73 slashing spending

The Kamloops-Thompson school district will be slashing spending on supplies and charging parents more for field trips as part of a plan to cover a $2-million shortfall caused by an accounting error.

As a result of a piece of revenue being counted twice in the district’s financial forecast, SD73 spent funds it didn’t have — resulting in the $2 million hole.

The $846,923 in the district’s local capital fund has been drained completely. The reserves in SD73’s operating funds — which includes local capital — have dropped to $1.45 million, from $3.5 million at the beginning of the year.

With no funds remaining in local capital, SD73 will have no money for portables, classrooms, furniture, computer hardware or software for the 2024-25 school year unless budgets are reduced, according to a report presented to the board of education Monday.

Reducing supplies and services

SD73’s budget reduction plan will reduce spending on supplies and services while increasing field trip costs.

“Senior staff have been tasked to provide sustainable budget reductions for supplies and services by 15 to 25 per cent,” SD73 secretary-treasurer Trina Cassidy told the board on Monday.

Supplies and services include costs to maintain facilities, transport students, utilities costs to operate schools and classrooms, and the costs of supplies for schools, classrooms and administration.

“We aren’t addressing core programming with schools at all, so we are not looking at cancelling academies or anything like that. We are trying to stay as far away from the classroom as possible," Cassidy said.

According to the report, 15 schools in the district were left with 20 per cent of their annual supplies budget unspent at the end of the 2023-24 school year, and a total of $1.5 million was unspent across the district.

“School supply carry forwards have been on average [in the] $1.4 million and $1.9 million range for the last five years,” Cassidy said.

“We have taken a differentiated approach to reduce the amount of the 2024-25 school supply allocation in an effort to draw down the amount held in the school carry forward fund.”

Supplies and services make up 12 per cent of the district’s operating fund — about $23.7 million for the 2023-24 school year.

Several strategies in plan

The district will also increase its per kilometre field trip charge from $0.35 per kilometre to $0.54 per kilometre. The report notes field trip charges have been stagnant for years.

“That per kilometre rate is what you would typically see in most other districts our size, ours seem to be quite low in comparison,” said SD73 trustee John O’Fee.

“That was a way of recouping some costs that we would charge for field trips in terms of the bus drivers, rather than operate at a loss.”

The plan will also increase monitoring of replacement and relief costs at the district level, which saw costs overrun by $2.3 million last year.

Cassidy said relief costs have doubled in the previous five years, and the district will “continue to replace school staff who are absent.”

According to the report given to the board, the increases in employee relief coasts are "disproportionate to the increases year-over-year in staffing levels and the negotiated wage increases."

Last week, SD73 superintendent Rhonda Nixon told Castanet no staffing cuts have been made as a result of the plan, nor are any planned.

The report states SD73 has also reduced face-to-face professional learning for all staff until the shortfall is rectified.

The plan will address $1.5 million to $2.2 million each year to replenish the district’s reserves. SD73 said the plan would take one to two years.

The board of education approved its budget reduction plan during an in-camera meeting in August.