YK1 School Board briefs
Superintendent contract extended
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Friday, February 20, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife Education District 1(Yk1) Trustee Allan Short moved and Trustee Mira Hall seconded a motion to approve Metro Huculak's contract extension as the superintendent of Yk1, during the board's meeting last week.
"I think everyone in Yellowknife can recognize the personal effort he puts toward our district," said Hall.
Trustee Terry Brookes, who has been a board member for 20 years, said he's worked with five superintendents in his tenure, and Huculak is doing a great job.
"Great organizers makes for a great community," he said on Wednesday.
Hall said Huculak deserves an extra pat on the back for his hard work in organizing the Austin Family Fundraiser, which raised around $26,000 to help pay for the treatment of Malcolm Austin, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
20 per cent of surpluses to go to the district
Metro Huculak, Yellowknife Education District 1 (Yk1) superintendent, said schools with surpluses - Range Lake North School, N.J. McPherson School and Sir John Franklin High School - will carry over 20 per cent of money not spent at year's end into the next budget.
He said the excess money comes from the operating and maintenance budget and around $123,000 could be set aside by the schools, with the largest chunk coming from Sir John Franklin School at around $63,000.
Terry Brookes, Yk1 trustee, said it's an administrative procedure, designed to help schools get the best bang for their buck.
"Being allowed to carry over 20 per cent of your budget, whether it's photocopy paper, or basketballs, or pencils ... allows more flexibility so the schools can maximize their value for their various purposes. This is to get away from (having) surpluses left in May or June, so that it's (not) like 'use it or lose it'," said Brookes.
Yk1 finances looking positive
Terry Brookes, Yk1 trustee said warm weather in January is helping the district to finish under budget. He said the finance committee met two weeks ago and reviewed the financial status as reported most recently by corporate affairs.
"Mother nature has a couple more kicks at us yet, so it's hard for us to predict what our year end will be but we should be coming well (under) budget," he said.
On Wednesday Brookes said after the last cold snap he wonders if he should eat his words.
"We could have another cold snap here and projections of a big surplus could be gone, or maybe it will warm up and we'll have a bigger surplus for expenditures and budgets," he said, adding that this year's budget was over $30 million. "We're pretty well on budget and in a couple of areas we tend to be under budget right now. When we do budgeting we always have sort of a cloudy crystal ball. We tend to budget a little bit on the conservative side. So on average we tend to end up - if everything went as we planned - we tend to end up with a little bit of a surplus.
