Quesnel’s Board of Education signed off on an amended budget for the current school year at this week’s meeting on Wednesday night.
Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Woollends says while there were some changes, the overall impact was a net zero.
“We saw increased funding due to FTE’s (Full-time equivalent students) and those dollars were used to support students, so additional teachers where they were needed, additional support services staff and items like that.”
Woollends says basically the extra money they got for having more students was used to top up staffing levels.
The Board did dip into surplus to come up with some one-time funding back in May of last year for this year’s budget.
“The Board approved in the annual budget a use of accumulated surplus dollars of $458,600 which was used for one-time funding to support this year’s school needs. The amended annual budget didn’t change from the annual budget. Some of the requests included additional supports in areas of support services, additional principal supports, some capital projects, and other initiatives.”
The overall 2022-23 budget was just over 47 million dollars.
Woollends says work will now begin on the 23-24 budget.
“We start looking at the budget in March and then we start having meetings with our staff and partner groups throughout the month of April, and in May the Board will approve the annual budget for the 23-24 school year.”