Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George School Board is one step closer to passing its annual 2016/17 budget bylaw.

This after Board trustees unanimously passed the first two readings of the bylaw at last night’s special meeting.

The total budget bylaw amount totaled $148,186,205. That number breaks down as follows:

• Operating – Total expenses: $129,254,935
• Special Purpose Funds – Total expenses: $10,672,184
• Special Purpose Funds – Tangible capital assets purchased: $6,000
• Capital Fund – Total expense: $7,573,161
• Capital Fund – Tangible capital assets purchased from local capital: $679,925

In order to balance the budget, the Board was forced to dip into its surplus to the tune of $1,045,171.

Chairperson Tony Cable says that practice isn’t sustainable.

“Absolutely not. If we continue this process, then we’re going to have to start looking at program cuts, bussing restrictions, there’s all sorts of things we’ll have to look at which aren’t very good alternatives.”

Vice-chairperson Tim Bennett, who has been around the budget table for five years, agrees.

“It’s very unsustainable to use surplus year after. We’re in a challenging spot where we have in a per pupil funding model – we have an increase in enrollment and we’re still facing a budget challenge.

“The challenging part is we need to invest a million dollars to balance a budget yet we had $1.3 million dollars stripped out of the budget for administrative savings. We could have balanced the budget if it wasn’t for the administrative savings.”

The Board will give the budget bylaw third and final reading at its next public meeting on May 31st.