Kamloops-Thompson School District Budget Consultation for 2025-2026
At the Regular Public Board Meeting on Monday, April 28, 2025, the Kamloops-Thompson Board of Education passed the 2025-2026 Annual Budget Bylaw. To learn more about the 2025-2026 Budget, please read the summary here and watch the 2025-2026 Budget presentation here.
Provincial cost increases are impacting school districts across the province and the Kamloops-Thompson School District is facing significant budget pressures in the 2025-2026 Budget. In the presentation above, you can learn more about the challenges our District and many others around the province are facing as we try to balance the priorities set out for us by government and by our school community, with the realities of inflationary pressures and current provincial funding levels. The District has had to make difficult decisions in order to address cost increases that are not funded by the province, revenue changes, and inflation pressures on Operating Funds, and we have done our best to meet school community feedback.
The 2025-2026 budget was developed after a robust consultation process over four months with staff, parents, caregivers, students, and employee partner groups, including 20 focus group meetings with representatives from the District Parents Advisory Council, CUPE, Kamloops-Thompson Teachers’ Association (KTTA), Kamloops-Thompson Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Association (KTPVPA), District Student Advisory Council, and the Indigenous Education Council (IEC), as well as over 300 survey responses, emails, and letters from parents, caregivers, staff, and community.
On April 9, 2025, the Kamloops-Thompson School District presented the Preliminary 2025-2026 Annual Budget. Following the preliminary budget presentation, District and school communities were invited to provide further feedback until April 21, 2025. We received 94 email responses, four letters, and feedback from employee partner groups that highlighted three main themes.
- Student Support and School Staff: Student support in the classroom and schools was the top priority for parents, staff, and community members. We aimed to minimize the impact on classroom teachers, continue to plan classes to meet students’ needs, and hire teachers based on enrollment. We have added, not reduced, allocations for Certified Education Assistants in classrooms. We have ensured that students have access to both Counselors and Learning Assistance Resource Teachers and have tried to minimize the impact on these roles. We have ensured that students have access to libraries and to their classroom teachers and librarians during library time while also continuing to support school libraries from the District-level.
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Curriculum Program Support and District Staff: Parents and staff emphasized the need to maintain curricular programming as well as extracurricular programming and events that support students. We have ensured district level staff can support curriculum such as literacy and numeracy, career education, languages, fine arts, and inclusive education for 2025-2026. Community feedback requested a reduction in district office positions and salaries—we have reduced district level staff in this budget and are 0.2% below the provincial average for district administration.
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Transparency and Trust in the 2025-2026 Budget: Parents, staff, and community asked for more transparency about the accounting error and the 2025-2026 Budget. Reductions in the 2025-2026 Budget are not the result of the accounting error which was addressed this year with strategies we implemented such as reducing district level supplies and services, some staff reductions, and reassignment of district level teachers to support replacing teachers when they were away. We have aimed to present the budget details with transparency, while respecting the privacy of individuals who may be affected by budget reductions.
The development of the budget involves allocating funding to further the 2022-2027 District Strategic Plan priorities:
- Intellectual Development: developing literacy and numeracy
- Human and Social Development: feeling welcome, safe, connected, and a sense of belonging
- Cultural and Identity Development: knowing oneself and being accepted for who we are personally and culturally without discrimination
- Career Development: discovering strengths, passions, competencies, and career pathways that enable us to use them
- Systems Development: taking care of facilities, transportation, information technologies, human resources, and communications
To learn more about each priority, you can review the District Learning Plan At-a-Glance one-page document or the detailed 2023-2024 District Learning Plan.
Learn more about the Basics of Budget, go here and Budget Pressures here.
Intellectual Development:
Human and Social Development:
Cultural and Identity Development:
Career Education Development:
Systems Development:
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