By Michael Joel-Hansen

2020-21 school year

Public school board signs off on 2020-21 school year budget

Jun 10, 2020 | 12:00 PM

The Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division has approved its budget for the next school year.

Trustees voted to pass the budget at their meeting Monday evening. The document outlines just over $100 million in spending for the coming school year.

The division’s Director of Education Robert Bratvold said the COVID-19 closures resulted in some unexpected savings.

“We realized some savings in terms of operations primarily through substitute teacher costs that just did not exist to the same degree at all as it would in a normal year,” he said.

For the coming year, Bratvold said they don’t expect to have any less funding on hand as a result of COVID-19. The provincial government recently announced school divisions will receive sustained funding despite the pandemic.

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“We will get the grants that have been indicated by the province,” he said.

The division was able to present a balanced budget for the coming year. Bratvold explained they were able to get a slight increase in grants from the Ministry of Education. He added they were also able to find some additional funding to provide more mental health supports.

Bratvold said there is some uncertainty about what the coming school year will look like with the COVID-19 virus still being an issue. The director of education said they have tried to plan for this as best as possible.

“It was too hard to predict and budget for what COVID will mean for us next school year and so we’ve got some flexibility built into the budget,” he said.

Division gets support to cut energy consumption

The division also got the greenlight from the province to move forward with a project which will see LED lights installed to cut energy costs. The initiative will be paid for in part through the Climate Action Incentive Fund, which is a collaboration between the federal and provincial governments.

In total the project is set to cost $1.3 million. Bratvold said Saskatchewan Rivers will be dipping into its reserve funds to cover their portion of the costs.

“Hopefully return on that investment will happen in the next three to five years,” he said.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn