PRINCE ALBERT — For the third straight year, the Prince Albert Catholic School Division passed a balanced budget by dipping into its reserves, but the board didn’t have to dip as deep compared to previous budgets.
The board of education decided during their meeting on Monday evening after a presentation by Chief Financial Officer Greg McEwen.
Director of Education Lorel Trumier said they worked quickly after a delay in receiving the provincial budget from the government.
"We did work very tirelessly, I guess would be the word, to make this budget a balanced budget and ensure that all of the needs of our school division are being met for the sake of our students and staff,” Trumier said.
She said the budget process started early in the New Year, so a lot of the preparation work was already done.
"(We have a) strong team of people trying to make this happen, and we were able to submit that to the board last night (Monday) and, obviously, prior to the audit committee and run through all of the different aspects of it,” Trumier said.
Budget numbers provided by CFO Greg McEwen show the Catholic division expects $40,009,250 in revenue. Most of that revenue will come from the Ministry of Education’s annual grant of $32,931,544.
The total expenditures budgeted for 2025-2026 are $40,728,656, creating a projected deficit of roughly $719,406. After making cash adjustments, the budget is in the positive at $82,168.
To get to the positive cash position, the division will fund it using restricted reserves, and what remains will be allocated to discretionary reserves.
The division is planning to add $100,000 to its discretionary reserves. Some examples of reserves used to get to balance were the PMR restricted reserve and, ELIS restricted reserve, among others.
This year, the division budgeted $28,284,781 for instruction, which includes teacher salaries, EA salaries and resources for students.
The provincial grant includes $941,189 in funding from the Ministry of Education for classroom complexity. The grant includes $315,64, which will be used for an additional full-time equivalent teacher and educational assistants as required under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The remaining $625,548 will be used for six full-time equivalent teacher positions.
“There are some positive parts of the budget that we were pleased to see, such as some attention to inflation rates and attention to class size and complexity, as well as these specialized programs. Those are big opportunities for the school division to support our students,” Trumier said.
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
