The Foothills School Division find themselves in a hole to the tune of $4.5 million dollars this school year.

Assistant Superintendent Drew Chipman says they settled on their budget at the meeting on Wednesday, November 13 and thanks to Provincial Budget cuts are adding an extra $1.9 million dollars in deficit spending to the $2.6 million they were already at.

"The 2019-2020 budget, after we've gone through the information from the Province it looks like a $4.5 million deficit, we'd already planned $2.6 million to draw down reserves to get down to five per cent, so the changes we've seen will get us an additional $1.9 million deficit."

Chipman says that means changes will be coming, but they'll hold off any major changes until next year.

"We know changes are coming next February or March so when that (Spring Provincial Budget) comes down, we'll certainly be taking a look at what other changes or other challenges present itself."

Despite the changes the Division says students won't notice any of them.

"Our teachers and our staff do a wonderful job making sure that the students have a great education and we don't see that changing. We see that there's going to have to be some changes when your talking about those kinds of dollars, we've gone through these kinds of episodes in the past where we've had to tighten our belts and make changes, whatever we do we are going to keep kids as our priority."

The Division will release its updated budget following the Province's update in the spring of 2020.

Read More: FSD Releases 2019/2020 Budget

 

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