The Hastings Prince Edward District School Board has said they needed to use surplus funds to balance this year’s budget.
The Board has approved a $222 million budget for 2022-23, with a deficit of 1.7 million dollars. They say the reason for this was because planned expenses exceeded revenues, because of a winding down of COVID-19 supports, new labour agreements, class size regulations and inflation.
Chair of the Board Shannon Binder says they were “laser-focused” on putting funding where it needed to be to support student learning and wellbeing. She adds that putting together this budget was “challenging work.”