Building budgets for schools is about priority setting around how to achieve the strategic goals that help us support students, staff and our community.

Deep consultation with our community and stakeholder groups have gone towards formulating our 5 year strategic plan. As a result of that work, we have now shifted from a state of collecting and understanding the priorities to executing on them … ensuring they’re resourced appropriately, in order to allow us to carry out the work in a meaningful way.

Needs and priorities evolve over time which does sometimes also require re-directing budgets from one area to the next. We also make adjustments based on a few key factors:

  • Changes to student enrolment and funding provided from the Province.
  • Changes to staffing or school enrolment needs.
  • Shifting departmental priorities, which align to the strategic plan.
  • Key priorities or targeted projects for the current year.

The 2023-2024 school year budget: Investing in kids and community

We are currently developing our 2023-2024 budget proposals for the Board of Education’s consideration and approval. This process involves in-depth review and priority assessments (based on our 5 year strategic plan), stakeholder consultations and multiple layers of needs assessments.

Ways you can engage and share your thoughts:

  • Send an email to: budgets@sd40.bc.ca
  • Mail: New Westminster Schools
    811 Ontario Street, New Westminster, BC, V3M 0J7
  • We invite you to take a few minutes to complete this survey and share your thoughts on some proposed ideas and investments for next school year. This survey will close on April 21st at 5pm.

Information, reactions and ideas gathered from the survey and from our targeted stakeholder meetings will be combined with our District staff’s work. Cumulatively, that will inform the Superintendent’s recommendations to the Board of Education, on the approval of the 2023-24 budget for the upcoming school year.

Please join us Tuesday, May 2nd, at 6:30 pm at the Operations, Policy & Planning meeting to see how the Superintendent’s recommendations have taken shape, based in part on your feedback.

What does a typical year and budget look like?

*Above numbers based on previous averages, calculated March 2022


Key dates and timelines

While the work to build, execute on and monitor our budgets is an on-going and overlapping process, there’s are also some key timelines and stages.

The key dates for the 2023-24 budget year are as follows.

Dec-March District and Board planning and preparation
Apr 11-21 Survey and budget consultation with students, parents, staff and community
March 27 Student symposium
April 19 & 20 Meetings with key stakeholder groups (unions, parent groups, students)
April 25 Open Board Meeting – including presenting feedback on community surveys and stakeholder engagement sessions
May 2 Superintendent’s recommendations presented to the Board & Complete 1st and 2nd reading of budget bylaw.
June 30 Ministry submission deadline for final budget

For more detailed info on key times: 2023-24 Detailed Budget Timelines

 


Interested in learning more?

All School Districts’ Statements of Financial Information (SOFI) reports are located here.
All Public Sector Executive Compensation Disclosure Statements are located here.
All Carbon Neutral Reports are located here.
Our most recent Climate Change Accountability Report (CCAR) can be found here.