School board to cut 10 staff from payroll

Budget cuts will end 10 staff positions next year from the Okanagan Skaha School District.

The 2013-14 budget was approved by trustees on Monday. On the block are 2.4 full-time equivalent positions with more to come in September. Teachers will lose 7.7 worth of their colleagues thanks to a projected student enrollment drop of 139.4 FTEs.

Chair Ginny Manning said it's been an 'extremely difficult process' this year.

The board was facing a $1.5 million shortfall. To dig their way out, they found $900,000 in reserves and $600,000 in budget cuts.

She said the long-term plan has softened the bad effects of a funding shortage, but service and program cuts were still necessary.

Cuts to provincial operating grants are causing one of the biggest budget blows. The B.C. Ministry of Education will slice $640,000 from the board's operating grant. This is due to a projected drop in student enrollment.

The budget's expenses will be smaller at $56 million in the new year, down from $57.3 million this year. Teachers' salary amounts and money for support staff will shrink slightly.

There will also be 2.4 FTE cuts affecting helping teachers, gifted-student programs,  behaviour programs, administrators and teachers for hearing-impaired students.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065 or tweet @shannonquesnel1