The Hope
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THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014
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3 TRAIL PROJECTS IN AREA SHOWCASED
Stakeholders provided a progress update at the Trails BC AGM in Hope
Farm visit
12 EVENTS FOCUS
Nathan Green helps Kenton Gilbert feed milk to a calf at Green Acres Farm last Friday during a Silver Creek Elementary Kindergarten/ Grade 1 and Grade 1/2 class field trip.
ON LOCAL FOREST
Community Forest group will host discovery night and summer walks
SUBMITTED PHOTO
15 HOPE PLAYER
REPRESENTS B.C. Dyllan James helped his team to a second place finish at nationals
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Rising costs impact school district budget Jessica Peters Black Press
The Fraser Cascade school district is facing reduced revenues of $283,000 for the 2014/2015 school year. This is the third year that SD 78 has been in “funding protection” by the Ministry of Education. Each year, MoE funding is reduced by 1.5 per cent, bringing the total loss to just under $900,000 for the three years. Secretary-treasurer Natalie LoweZucchet outlined the budget at a public meeting Monday afternoon, in the library of Agassiz elementary secondary school. She explained that only one per cent of district funding comes from sources other than MOE. If this seems like a problem now, it could be even worse in the next few years.
Enrolment is currently on the decline, she said, so while they have less money for program operation, there are fewer students to teach. That enrolment decline is slowing down, and is expected to increase in the 2016/2017 school year. “This means that when the district begins to see an increase in students, we will actually be worse off in terms of funding as we will be making due on less funding,” Lowe-Zucchet said. There are a few other pressures on the budget this year, she added. Besides the revenue reductions, they are seeing increases in BC Hydro rates, which rose nine per cent this April, and will rise another six per cent next April. While the district has an energy saving program, and has
recently upgraded some schools to be more efficient, this will still pose an estimated increase of $28,500 in energy costs. Also taken into account are the cost pressures from inflation, and the increase in costs of services “similar to what you’re probably seeing on your bills at home,” she said. Things like delivery cost charges and fuel surcharges are showing up where they never existed before, she added. In addition to usual education funding, $20,000 has been earmarked for the November school board elections, which Lowe-Zucchet said may be a low estimate. The district has also set aside funding to upgrade the roof of the Coquihalla elementary, and some of that may also come out of reserves. The
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estimate for that job is upward of $600,000. Another $27,000 had to be added to the budget to cover rising costs of employee benefits, including CPP, EI, teacher pension and MSP. A new student information system will be implemented this year, replacing BCeSis. That will require additional resources, Lowe-Zucchet said. That could add as much when $60,000 to the budget as staff time and training is taken into account. There were some questions that remain unanswered as of yet, too. There are outstanding teacher negotiations, a CMAW contract that is up for renewal, and exempt staff who haven’t had pay increases since 2009. Continued on 9
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