Board passes new budget

The vice chair of the North Okanagan Shuswap school board say he’s glad they were able to add to the district, rather than make cuts.

Quentin Bruns was commenting on the new 83 million dollar budget, given approval this week.

“It’s very nice to be in this situation. I found the process to be very open and inclusive with a lot of good information shared. All those things are conducive to us being able to make better decisions,” says Bruns.

The budget includes more funding from the BC government with student enrolment also up.

It includes over a quarter million dollars in extra teaching time aimed at improving graduation rates.

“In an effort to continue to increase graduation rates, including students with special needs, to improve numeracy levels across the district, to better address student well being, and to support teachers in adapting to new curriculum, additional teaching time has been included in the proposed 2019-20 draft budget,” says a District news release.

One bone of contention for several trustees was not being able to keep the District’s energy manager in the budget.

Board Chair Marianne VanBuskirk says she and several other trustees are dissapointed about that.

“That’s the only thing I disagree with in this budget,” says VanBuskirk.

Trustee Marty Gibbons says trustees couldn’t guarantee it would be cost neutral.
The budget does allocate $106,134 to  reinstate the Manager of Facilities and Grounds position that was cut in 2016.

VanBuskirk thanked the budget committee, trustees, and senior leadership for all the hours that go into building the budget and making it such a transparent process.

Fore more on the budget details, go here.