The St. Clair Catholic District School Board has approved its budget for the 2016-2017 school year.
This year's budget comes in at $108,579,726, which is down about $3,000 from last year.
"It was a difficult year again," says Associate Director Jim McKenzie. "Not as difficult as some, but the board rose to the challenge."
McKenzie says they were able to find some savings by cutting back on the amount of money they spend on technology, which is becoming more affordable.
"The replacement cost is much cheaper now -- as technology improves, the prices go down," says McKenzie. "We have been able to manage the last year or so with fewer dollars in that area, so we made those types of reductions permanent."
The board was also able to find some savings by cutting a few positions that were vacated by retirements.
"We weren't looking to impact people's employment and actually lay people off," says McKenzie. "We didn't have to do that -- we were able to do that through attrition."
McKenzie says enrolment at the local Catholic board also appears to be levelling off, so that's providing them with some stability as they map out their future budgets.
Now that the budget has been approved at the school board level, it will be submitted to the Ministry of Education.
