A budget for School District 5 was approved by the board of trustees on Tuesday, June 14.

Cuts in provincial funding meant the board was facing a net funding shortfall of $1,050,000 for next year's budget, which follows last year's shortfall of $993,000 according to SD5 Board Chair Frank Lento.

"While very little has changed in the way of enrolment projections or programming needs, we find ourselves - once again - with less money this year than we had last year. It puts us in the difficult position of Funding Protection from the Education Ministry for the coming school year."

Funding Protection is an additional amount provided to school districts to ensure funding levels for the upcoming fall are at least equal to the funding levels received last autumn. Funding Protection is currently under review by the Ministry of Education and has not been confirmed for future years.

Trustee Chris Johns said the current funding formula for Districts "works fine in a world where prices never go up, but that's not the world in which we live.

"Inflation alone produces cost increases to the District of over one million dollars year over year. In addition to inflation the District also has to pay for carbon offsets, MSP premium increases, BC Hydro rate increases, and the HST."

Johns also said that while the provincial government hasn't provided enough funding to run SD5 operations at the same level as last year, they still require Districts to balance their books.

"And that, unfortunately, means more cuts," said Johns. "It's no secret that the funding formula for education is broken. That's really what this is all about. The provincial government needs to acknowledge the current reality and work with trustees to make adequate investments in the future education of our kids."

Lento said the Board wanted to keep cuts as far away from students as possible but given last year's cuts it was a tall order. "Last year almost 30 per cent of our cuts came out of governance - District administration and Trustee budgets. As a result it's been more challenging for Trustees to fully represent the interests and concerns of parents given the large geographic size of our District. We just can't cut anymore in those areas."

According to Trustee Dan Hall a significant portion of the budget shortfall has been offset by using the last of the Board's $775,000 reserve funds.

"As a business owner I know you have to have something set aside to deal with emergencies, such as the structural beam problem in the Mount Baker music room a couple of years ago. You have to be able to deal with those unknowns that always pop up. It's taken away one of the options we've used in the past to moderate the need for cuts."

Although this year's budget once again reflects the Board's commitment to ensure that no educational programs were cut, they intend to submit a "needs budget" alongside the legislated balanced budget.

"We believe that what we're dealing with is an inherent structural shortfall within the funding system itself," said Lento, who defines the shortfall as a financial situation where available revenue is persistently and chronically less than what many Districts believe is needed to pay for the delivery of publicly mandated programs and services.

Lento also believes that the Board has gone as far as it can in trying to make ends meet without adversely affecting the future educational opportunities for students in the District.

"With the current round of cuts we've made, and now being forced to spend the last of our reserves, we don't have any room to move," said Lento. "We need government to recognize and accept that the current funding formula must be re-examined and work with us constructively to protect public education."