Quesnel’s Board of Education has endorsed a balanced 2020-2021 Preliminary Operating Budget of just over $41,164.00.
The District has budgeted for a normal return to the school year in the fall with additional costs factored in for COVID-19 related to staffing, custodial and cleaning supplies.
Secretary Treasurer Jennifer Woollends…
“When we looked at it, budgeting for a normal school year is likely our most expensive scenario, so if we budget for that and make adjustments as we know what the return to school will actually look like, we will do that.  It is definitely an unknown right now so we budgeted for additional custodian and cleaning because we know that is definitely something that we will do, so we looked at what we’re doing currently and projected from there, as well as allowing some extra staffing and components like that.”
Woollends says they always do an amended budget midway through the year anyways, and she says that will happen again for this year.
The Board also gave the green light to some additions in the budget…
“What the Board has approved is some additional educational assistants, education assistants staffing and curriculum and support teachers, in line with what we had this year which was one time approvals done at the same time last year so we’ve asked for those again which is great. We also have some overcrowding on some of our buses so we definitely addressed that and added some additional route configurations, and our school district actually has to pay for a portion of the new QJS school, so our contributing amount is 150 thousand.”
Woollends says they will pay one third of that this year and then 50 thousand in each of the next two years as well.
There is also new money for wage adjustments for Principals, Vice-principals and administration staff.
All tolled, the additions add up to just under 449 thousand dollars.
The District says it will be covered off by an anticipated surplus of more than 75 thousand dollars from this year, with the remainder coming out of the accumulated operating surplus fund from other years.
1. Additional Education Assistants staffing in line with the current year $ 110,719
2. Additional transportation route (to address overcrowding) $ 19,805
3. Curriculum and resource support teachers $ 92,898
4. SD 28 contribution to new school (1/3 of $150,000) $ 50,000
5. One teaching vice-principal (École Red Bluff Lhtako) and principal support $ 143,958
6. Principals/Vice-principals, managers and district administrator staff wage adjustments $ 31,446