The Upper Grand District School Board has passed the 2018-19 school year budget.
The budget is balanced and compliant with ministry requirements. Trustees approved an operating budget of $401,347,488. The 2018-19 capital budget was approved at $55,643,680.
Provincial context
The Ministry of Education announced the 2018-19 Grants for Student Needs (GSN) on March 26, along with some of the Education Program – Other (EPO) grants. Funding is included that provides partial support for increased transportation and commodity prices.
In order to support the continued implementation of 2017-19 centrally negotiated labour agreements, the GSN included funding for a 1.5 per cent salary benchmark increase, class size investments and local priorities funding to support staff investments introduced in 2017-18.
Funding has also been provided to support the transition to provincial benefits trusts for employee health, life and dental benefits. GSN and EPO announcements included funding for a multi-disciplinary team to build board capacity and help school staff with the unique needs of students, funding to provide additional mental health workers in schools, and funding to hire additional guidance teachers.
In the UGDSB
The UGDSB enrolment projections for 2018-19 indicate growth in the elementary students.
Enrolment projections in secondary remain essentially flat. Since many grants are based on number of students, the board’s projected higher enrolment for 2018-19 has positive impact on most grants received.
Elementary staffing increases by 32.4 full-time equivalent (FTE) due to increases in enrolment and changes in class size requirements for kindergarten and junior/intermediate classes. Secondary staffing stays essentially flat, due to relatively flat enrolment.
The budget includes the addition of 44 FTE educational assistants (permanent and temporary), which reflects the increasing need to provide support to students with special needs. The budget also adds an autism spectrum disorder facilitator to assist students with special needs, four FTE itinerant mental health clinicians and additional communication disorder assistants. The number of early childhood educators increases by five FTE to reflect the number of JK/SK classes in 2018-19 that exceed 15 students.
The net increases in board administration FTE is primarily driven by changes in the human resources department, including a manager of secondary recruitment and staffing and additional support for pensions and benefits.
The UGDSB budget includes $100,000 in proposed spending to assist children who cannot afford to participate in programs or activities, and maintains funding for transporting rural students to Sports events and school groups to provincial or international competitions.
