Despite a supplemental enrolment growth grant from the province recently providing Rocky View Schools (RVS) with nearly $1.2 million, the division will still receive about $3.3 million less than if every student was fully funded, according to RVS Superintendent Greg Luterbach.
The current weighted-moving-average (WMA) method considers an enrolment average over three years, using the division’s current enrolment and the enrolment from the previous year to determine future funding.
Luterbach said that despite having to educate 28,558 students in 2023/24, RVS funding from the province is based on WMA formula calculation for only 27,835 students.
“That is a difference of about 720 students not included in our base instructional grants,” he said.
The government did acknowlege some recognition of this difference with a supplemental enrolment growth grant of $737,000 earlier this year, which was already allocated in the division's overall 2023/24 operating budget.
The formula for this grant provided $1,500 per student if the division experienced two to five per cent growth, and $3,000 per student over five per cent growth.
At the end of September 2023, RVS grew by approximately 940 eligible funded students or 3.5 per cent.
In addition, more government funding was announced on Nov. 28 and divisions were to receive $1,500 per student for actual enrolment growth between zero and 100 students and $2,000 per student for growth exceeding 100 students.
For RVS, this means that the updated supplemental enrolment growth grant formula should generate almost $2 million in revenue for RVS, Luterbach said.
“I will remind you that $737,000 was already spent, so really it’s about $1.181 million of anticipated new revenue that should show up in December,” Luterbach said.
He suggested the budget committee meet to review and discuss potential uses for these supplemental funds.
Administration did not bring forward any recommendation to allocate those funds.
