School board taking hit from high oil and fuel costs

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The Tri-County Regional School Board says high oil and fuel costs are hitting it hard.

The higher costs are contributing to a deficit of around $200,000 to $230,000. This comes after the board chewed up its budget of $1.39 million for oil and fuel.

“All boards have over spent their budgets (for fuel and oil),” said superintendent Phil Landry at the board’s last meeting.

And school boards like the Tri-County aren’t just concerned about the impact this year, but in the coming years as well.

This isn’t the first time the oil and fuel costs have pounded the Tri-County board. In the 2004/05 school year, for instance, the board received $262,000 in funding assistance from the province because oil costs had put it in a deficit position.

Landry suggested at the board’s March 4 meeting that type of bailout funding isn’t something the province is likely to do again this year.

Asked if that is indeed the case, Dan Harrison, communications advisor for the Department of Education, said in the past the department has offered a subsidy to boards who were experiencing budget difficulties because of high heating costs.

“But it is still too early to say whether this heating season will negatively affect overall board finances,” he said.

“We will hold discussions with boards if the funding we provided to them proves to be inadequate because of the high price of oil,” he added. “Of course, the department has a budget too and we want to stay within our budget.”

Landry, meanwhile, said the impact of higher fuel and oil costs is a concern the school board doesn’t see going away.

Aside from the nearly 30 schools the board has, it has 80 regular run buses traveling just under 15,000 kilometres per day.

Harrison said worries about the impact of oil costs in the future is what boards in the province seemed to be most concerned about.

He said at the last meeting between the department and superintendents, the biggest concern boards seemed to have about oil and fuel costs were not so much directed to this year, but rather what the future holds for boards next year and beyond.

Meanwhile, the Tri-County board’s finance department is in the process of drafting the upcoming budget, although it has not yet come to the school board for discussion.

Asked whether there has been talk about increasing the money budgeted for oil and fuel, board spokesperson Joe Hazelton said, “The overall discussions are taking place between the boards and the province because that is where the funding comes from.”