Friday will remain a school day at Fort McMurray public schools.
The board rejected the idea of a four-day week last night, and rejected all other cost-saving measures like reconfiguring grades at certain schools.
“What we will have to do now is draw on our reserves in this immediate fiscal year,” said board chair Jeff Thompson, “and then come back and look in the next school year at what we might do differently to address our deficit challenges.”
Thompson says public opinion made a difference.
“I think trustees listened to what parents and others and staff said about the impact, both on them personally as well as on their students, and what the costs might be to our staff,” he said.
Thompson says even though they’ll have to dip into reserves to cover this year’s deficit, the good news is that the shortfall is smaller than first thought.
“In the government’s count on some of the grant funding that they provide to us, their numbers were inaccurate,” he said. “And it was not only inaccurate for this year, but also for the last school year. So, we got funding that was a shortfall for last year, as well as this school year.”
He says the board will use its 7 million dollar reserve to cover the 3 million dollar deficit this year.
But that will only last them for one, maybe two more school years, if the province doesn’t boost funding.
February 20, 2013
