The annual budgeting cycle has been ongoing since the fall when School Board Trustees and the Senior Administration team sat down to discuss strategic priorities and programs of the school division going forward. Following this meeting, the Senior Administration team works with the division's budgeting committee and school Principals to understand funding requirements for the following year.
These funding requests and the Trustees' funding requests are reviewed in January at a Committee of the Whole meeting, and a list of funding requests is created. This shortlist is then incorporated into the financial modelling by the Secretary-Treasurer and her team. Then, in early February, following the Provincial funding announcement, each Trustee receives and reviews their budget working papers, including over 400 pages of financial information. It is then up to the Finance committee to review and debate each funding request over February and existing funding. Currently, the Finance committee has three meetings planned in February to review our 2022-23 budget.
Following the consensus of the Finance committee, the budget is presented to the community and key stakeholders for feedback. This year's Community Budget Forum will take place on February 24th. Once feedback is compiled, the Finance committee will meet again on March 1st to make any changes required before making a recommendation to the Board to approve the 2022-23 budget on March 8th.
While this might be a short write-up, I can promise you that it's not easy. Our Finance/Facilities Team has been working long hours to ensure that this process runs smoothly, and our final budget is submitted to the provincial government on time. I want to thank them once again for all their hard work so far.
-Message from Craig Glennie, Trustee for Centre Ward & Chair, Finance Committee