Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools has its budget sorted out ahead of the next school year.
At a board meeting May 28, trustees unanimously approved the 2025-26 budget bylaw, which totals $228.6 million. Currently, projected enrolment sits at 15,640 full-time students, according to the budget document.
In terms of remuneration, the school district has allocated over $171 million for salaries and benefits, including $81.5 million for teachers, $11.2 million for principals and vice-principals, $14.6 million for education assistants, $14.6 million for support staff and $7.7 million for substitute teachers.
Part of the staffing will be allocated to Rutherford Elementary School, which is set to re-open after a seven-year hiatus. Gillian Robinson, school district spokesperson, said in an e-mail that Rutherford has been assigned 14 full-time equivalent teachers and a full-time clerical position based on an estimated enrolment of 240 students. She said that is subject to change, as more staffing could be added pending actual enrolment numbers in the fall.
The district will spend over $1.3 million on salaries for student transportation and close to $446,000 on related services and supplies and Robinson said there will be changes made in the district's north end.
"The bus route that brought students in the Rutherford area to Frank J. Ney is being reallocated to support students moving from Departure Bay to Frank J. Ney, serving Oaklands and Oak Ridge neighbourhoods to [Ney]," said Robinson.
With reports of other B.C. school districts in the red, trustee Tania Brzovic called it a "good budget."
"Staff has done extremely good work on this budget," she said at the meeting. "We are one of the few [school districts] who are not facing a deficit at this point … we are servicing students well, we are continuing to increase our time for [education assistants] and continuing to provide supports in classrooms for teachers."
