The Anglophone South School District Education Council will be looking at asking provincial Education Minister Brian Kenny for a meeting on how to deal with their budget shortfall.
For the 2016-2017 budget year the DEC is looking at a deficit of $2.1-million but it’s believed that number can be lowered to $1.2-million-dollars. The council is not able to operate with a deficit.
Chair Rob Fowler says they would like to get the expenditure plan out at their next meeting in September.
“Also that we look at, we think we can address the gap between 1.2 and 2.1,” says Fowler. “But in the offchance we can’t, maybe we should look at an up to $2.1-million-dollar adjustment from the minister on our budget or at least some help with how we can address that.”
Fowler says they face budget pressure every year and over the last several years it’s been tighter and tighter with their needs only growing.
He says the key pressure point for them is the number of EAs they have to employ given the student services need that they have in Anglophone South.
He says this is the second or third time that they’ve been in a position where they really don’t think they can meet the budget target given the needs that they have in the district.
