At its June meeting, the board of Holy Trinity Catholic School Division (HTCSD) approved a $28.5 million balanced operating budget for 2023/24.

Expenses were up $1.1 million (4%) from 2022/23, with instruction expenses increasing $1 million (5.3%).

Instruction-related expenses comprise 76.7% of overall expenses.

"What's key for us is that we do have a balanced operating budget of approximately $28.5 million," said HTCSD CFO Curt Van Parys. "It also reflects some additional funding that the ministry allocated to school divisions back on June 1 of which we received close to $494,000. That was to address pressures associated with enrollment growth and also to address classroom complexity needs that our school division and a number of other school divisions are facing."

Holy Trinity received $208,206 for classroom complexity and $285,960 for enrolment growth.

"It allowed us to put in some additional supports at some of our schools where it's needed the most in terms of helping kids literacy achievement and things of that nature. Also, we're in the rather fortunate position where we are experiencing some solid enrolment growth. We are right now having 2,400 kids registered in our school division for the upcoming fall which for us is the highest enrolment, if that holds, in the past decade."

Van Parys said the additional funding provided by the province was based on 2,346 students, noting they are already 2.4% above that projection.

"A large part of that is attributable to the level of immigration that our province is experiencing and Moose Jaw's no exception. Swift Current as well."

Students at HTCSD will be served by a staff complement of 256.5 full-time equivalents, which represents a 3.5 per cent increase.

"Close to 80 per cent of our budget is in staffing," added Van Parys. "When kids walk in the door, there is additional supports that are required so we're experiencing a bit of a bubble in terms of enrolment growth at Christ the King in Shaunavon so we provided some additional support there. We've added an additional pre-K program at All Saints Catholic in Swift Current and we're able to provide additional staffing supports for all of our schools that are experiencing this enrolment growth."

The next regular board meeting for HTCSD will take place in Moose Jaw on August 19 at 1p.m.