On June 1st, the Rocky View School Board approved it's budget for the 2017/18 school year.

The estimated budget of $264 million will address the needs of 23,754 students, which is an increase of about 1,040 students over last year.

"77 percent of that $264 million is directed towards instruction," said Board Chair Colleen Munro. "So that's where the bulk of that money goes."

13 percent of the budget will go to plant operations and maintenance, six percent to transportation, and just under three percent to governance and administration. The cost for administration and governance equals about $8 million, which falls below the government's cap of 3.6 percent and is also a decrease from last year of 3.06 percent.

Munro said the new budget will mean some new hires in the school division.

"We're maintaining class sizes, which means an addition of about 38 new teachers."

Munro says that those new teachers will either go to new schools opening in the division or to existing schools depending on need. 31 will teach at the K-8 level, while the remaining seven will teach high school. Under the budget, Rocky View will also add a new Numeracy Learning Specialist to target math competencies, and a new Trustee after the upcoming fall elections.

The division will face some challenges in the upcoming year, which Munro said are similar to this past year.

"Transportation continues to be a challenge. The base funding just hasn't kept up with the increases in diesel fuel prices in our agreements with our contractors in terms of what we pay them, and then there's also the added cost of the carbon levy. All of that adds up, and when you're behind already it's hard to get caught up."

Munro said there is also still a question mark around fees for transportation, as the Minister for Education still needs to sign off on fee increases for transportation that were approved by the Rocky View School Board in May. If a change is required to those fees, Munro says it will be accomodated when the board updates the budget in the fall.

 

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