After years of austerity, the New Westminster school board finally presented a better news budget at their meeting Tuesday night.
The $62-million financial plan carries zero job cuts and identifies a $500,000 emergency surplus.
"It'll be nice to actually go out and say, 'How would you like to spend this money we have?' versus 'Where do you think we should cut?'" said board chair Jonina Campbell.
To deal with class-size and composition issues, $600,000 has been put aside to hire six to seven more teachers. Another quarter million will go into school supplies. The board also wants to inject an additional $750,000 into IT infrastructure.
"It's something we've heard over and over again from our students and teachers, that we need access to better equipment, that we need Wi-Fi, that we need to move forward in this district on technology," Campbell added. "This is a response to that."
Other items include hiring two additional trades people to help with building maintenance and spending $61,200 on emergency preparedness supplies.
"We're investing in the future with this budget," said superintendent John Gaiptman. "We had to do the heavy lifting over the past few years and we're putting significant investments back into the classroom."
The $500,000 surplus, meanwhile, is a result of a bylaw passed last year on Gaiptman's recommendation.
"It sets it up so that you can't just use it to buy a cappuccino maker," Campbell noted. "The provincial government recently announced districts have to find administrative savings. Well, where does that money come from? We could use our restricted surplus."
The board also expects to retire the district's $4.86-million debt by 2018 with a three-year repayment plan (a payment of $1.15-million every year).
Many applauded the fiscal plan, including Grant Osborne, the president of the New Westminster Teachers' Union.
"It's an incredible relief to see what we've managed to turn around in a year," he said. "To see that we're actually in a position of spending, of building capacity in schools, addressing the shortfalls we've had, it's an exciting turnaround."
The president of CUPE Local 409 couldn't agree more.
"It's the first good news we've had since 2009. We've had a lot of cuts and everyone suffered," Marcel Marsolais, who represents support staff, said. "We're still grossly under-funded by the Ministry of Education, but I do want to credit the current board on earmarking where most of the needs are."
Beth Ott, chair of the New West District Parent Advisory Council, told the Record she hopes many of the programs that were previously cut find their way back into the school district.
To avoid a shortfall during the 2013-2014 school year, the equivalent of 61 positions were eliminated. Twenty-nine more were cut the following year, as well as the academic night school and part of the continuing education program.
"We're putting money back into a system that had a lot taken out for many years, and had a lot of instability," said Campbell.
Gaiptman reiterated much of the same.
"It's a wonderful time to be part of the New Westminster school district because we're growing. Our goal has always been to support the educator and support the learner, and I think we've been doing that since last September," he said.
The budget will now go through a series of public consultations before it is passed at the end of April.
