Anglophone East School District Director of Finance Aubrey Kirkpatrick (Photo: Zoom DEC meeting)
The Anglophone East Director of Finance says a $2.5 million surplus isn’t typical for the School District, but Aubrey Kirkpatrick says it wasn’t a normal year due to COVID-19.
He says there are many reasons for the surplus, but he narrowed it to three, including higher predicted transportation costs, “When we were asked to provide transportation estimates for having half the people on our bus, the Transportation department felt that all of our drivers would have to be eight hour drivers. We also figured they would be driving seventy to eighty kilometres more because they would be doing multiple trips. We got five buses and five drivers funded, and we over estimated in that as it turns out and we ended up with an $800, 000 surplus there, because we didn’t need it.”