The Kootenay Lake school district’s finance and operations committee will make its final recommendation on how to best spend a $742,000 surplus on Dec. 8.
“We try to encourage one-time expenditures, because surplus isn’t sustainable,” secretary-treasurer Kim Morris told the Star. “We’re looking for one-time, big bang opportunities.”
There are a number of competing priorities, and an abundance of opinions on how to spend the cash. The decision-making process has involved multiple meetings between parents, staff, administration and other stakeholders.
Morris said they’re working towards consensus-building as much as they can, though they’re dealing with a “laundry list” of requests.
“We’re talking about more money for clerical time, additional funds for MyEdBC. Then there’s questions like whether we should be adding staffing for transformational learning environments or if we should increase staffing for the new curriculum.”
There are also software work-flows that need to be tweaked.
Last year’s surplus was $767,547 and ended up going towards, among other things, technology upgrades, laserfiche licenses and MyEdBC. Another $308,000 from strike savings went straight to schools.
Morris said this year’s outcome should be similar, but the decision-making process has been tough.
“We ask a lot of our committee members’ time, and the commitment they’ve shown is commendable.”