The process of budgeting for the school division begins in the fall of the year prior to the year for which the budget is being set.
We begin by compiling school and department budgets, calculating salaries based on programming needs and determining cost increases for contractual obligations. One of the challenges for the 2024-2025 year is that all of the employee groups have expired contracts and are currently going through deliberations, making salary costs difficult to estimate.
We also hold a public consultation early in the process, in late November to early December, to get the input of all of our stakeholders. A survey goes out and a meeting that can be attended either virtually or in person is held with the Board of Trustees.
By early February, we receive the funding announcement from the province which makes up 62-63% of our revenue. The funding formula has been recognized both by our past government and current government as being broken, and there have been promises for a new formula for several years now. For 2024-2025, our formula funding decreased by $688,266. The province then provides a formula guarantee to offset that, so that we do not see a decrease in funding. Outside of the formula, we will see an increase of $243,000, bringing our increase to operating revenue from the province to less than 1%. After allocating an additional $275,000 that must be used for Nutritional Programming, the funding announcement shows Mountain View School Division at a 2% increase for the 2024-2025 budget.
Other sources of revenue include tuition fees, bus maintenance agreements and miscellaneous items such grants and rebates. These revenues account for just over 4% of revenue.
Once we have calculated all of the estimated cost increases, received our funding announcement and have estimated our other revenue sources, we look for cost savings and then municipalities are asked to cover the shortfall. Municipal revenues currently make up approximately 33% of our revenue. In the past few years, there was a limit to the amount that a school division could request from the municipalities. The government would then offset that amount to ensure that Special Levies remained the same. For 2024-2025, that restriction has been removed and school boards have been empowered to determine a reasonable increase to municipalities. Special Levies are required to be set no later than March 15th.
With minimal increased provincial funding and ever-increasing costs of services and supplies, as well as uncertain salary increases, the Board will have some difficult decisions to make in determining what a reasonable amount is to increase school taxes and where to find cost savings while balancing the educational needs of students.
On March 7, 2024 there will be another Public Budget Forum with the Board of Trustees to present and discuss the draft 2024-2025 Budget. Please visit our website at www.mvsd.ca for further details and to register your attendance.