School board squeezes 2011-12 budget to save teachers’ jobs, YPT
Posted Jun 9, 2011 05:40:47 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Halifax Regional School Board says it’s walking a tightrope with the newly approved 2011-2012 budget.
The budget is balanced, but spending had to be cut to the limit in order to save 40 teachers’ positions and programs like the Youth Pathways and Transition.
More than 160 full-time equivalent positions will be eliminated through attrition, and board chair Irvine Carvery says most will be support staff.
“Fifty per cent math coaches, fifty per cent literacy coaches,” he said. “Those coaches aren’t there for the individual students, they’re there to help teachers. So that’s going to be felt there.”
Maintaining service and staff levels from 2010-11 would have resulted in a shortfall of $9.7 million, so Carvery said cutbacks couldn’t be avoided.
However, board staff were able to find enough savings to keep 40 teaching positions that were to be eliminated. The popular Youth Pathways and Transition program has also been saved, although it will continue with a staff of only five instead of nine, and will be available only to high school students.
The savings were found by reducing allocations for budget lines such as substitute teachers, professional development and heating oil, which means an unusually cold winter or just one unforeseen problem will put the board in the red – and the money will have to be found in next year’s budget.
Carvery says the board made the right decision, and is well aware of the risk.
“Our superintendant said she’ll be keeping a monthly eye on our budget, and any time there’s a concern, that will be coming back to the board to make some decisions on some of the discretionary spending,” she said.
Carvery says the board was feeling budget pressures even before the Education Minister’s directive to cut spending by two per cent and says next year’s budget process will be even more difficult.
“I don’t want people to think that before these budget cuts, this board was very well-resourced and we were able to meet all the needs of the board,” he said. “That’s not the case.”
On Wednesday, the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board passed its budget – but couldn’t avoid making cuts.
Facing a shortfall of $3.8 million, the board eliminated 17 teacher positions for the coming school year.
Eight and a half full-time equivalent consultant positions will also be cut as of August 1.
The board has also reduced funding for professional development, travel and administrative positions through attrition.
Board chair Trudy Thompson says in a release that the cuts will affect staff and students and can’t be sustained – especially if the province asks for more spending reductions.
