Public board approves 2021-22 budget, enrolment picture looks positive

“Given the challenges of the pandemic over the year, this has been a challenging period of time not only to work through in last year’s budget but also to get ready to plan for next year.” 

That from Joe Santa Maria, Algoma District School Board (ADSB) superintendent of business at Tuesday evening’s virtually held board meeting (the last of the current school year).

The board approved a balanced budget of $169,202,981 for the 2021-22 budget year.

“At this time we’ve staffed tightly and any requests have been kept to a minimum and we’ll continue to monitor enrolment as we move into September,” Santa Maria said.

The superintendent of business reported “at this time we have a positive enrolment picture.”

As a result, the board is now awaiting for additional special project funding announcements and September 2021 enrolment figures. Those may result in additional improvements to the ADSB system for 2021-22.

“On the elementary side we have numbers of about 30 that are above last year at the same time coming to the table, and our secondary level is a very positive picture with 182 students over what was brought to the board last year...it’s one of the first times in a long time we’ve had an increase in enrolment in secondary so that’s great news coming into the new year,” Santa Maria said.

“As we approach September we expect enrolment to climb which will then allow us more flexibility with extra funds that come to the table in September.”

Santa Maria said the 2021-22 budget will not affect any level of service to classrooms.

The budget includes:

• commitments to supports for instructional leadership and the Board Improvement plan objectives (well-being, achievement and engagement)
• supports for special education and mental health programming
• capital improvements in schools
• professional development for technology
• commitments for personal protective equipment (PPE) due to COVID-19

The Ministry of Education has advised school boards to manage their costs with diligence as provincial budgets are strained.

Nevertheless, the ADSB’s budget includes new enhancements due to reallocations of existing funds and new Ministry funding, based on good enrolment numbers and projections for September.

Those enhancements include:

• purchase of Kindergarten to Grade 8 digital math program resources
• special education and autism resources
• Indigenous graduation coach resources
• commitments to the board’s trades program
• Family Math and Literacy Initiative
• capital improvements at many ADSB schools
• technology improvements and upgrades to infrastructure and devices

The budget included what Santa Maria called “a small draw” from the board’s surplus of $270,000.

“Everything we’ve done the last 15 months has an added layer of complexity to it. 13 pages (in the board’s budget package) really represents at least 13 weeks of constant back and forth (formulating the budget for 2021-22). It was an extraordinary year,” said Lucia Reece, ADSB director of education, thanking the board team for its work in managing ADSB finances.