Nanaimo school board has signed off on next year’s budget.
The school board unanimously passed three readings of its 2018-19 annual budget bylaw.
A number of trustees liked what they saw in the budget during an earlier business committee meeting this month. Trustee Jeff Solomon called it a good news budget, while committee chairman Scott Kimler didn’t believe it gets much better.
“We’re not closing any schools, we’re not laying anybody off, we’re actually bringing people on, we’re putting $4 million to help support students. I don’t think there’s anything not to love about this,” he said.
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But trustee Noah Routley said he’d liked to have seen more emphasis on education assistants, support staff and a reduction on wait times for assessments and Brzovic said she struggled with the issue of the deputy superintendent, pointing out she reviewed policies and there are concerns. However, she also said there are good things in the budget, good increases in some areas and she’s glad the district kept its community school coordinators.
A motion to cut a deputy superintendent position was made at the meeting and scrapped.
The $157-million budget includes nearly $4 million in initiatives, including expanding the number of schools with a literacy focus from four to 12, as well as $58 million in teacher salaries, $11 million for support staff and $8.9 million for educational assistants.
The province will also give the district just over $11 million in classroom enhancement funds, $93,000 less than what was asked for. The money is used for CUPE staffing, mentoring, and costs for school resources, to support more teachers and there will now be less of that.
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