CALGARY—The city’s public school board plans to trim $15 million and up to 69 full-time positions — most of them in the facilities management and learning support areas — to balance its books next year.

But the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) will still spend close to the allowable maximum of 3.6 per cent on top administration next year as it keeps struggling with a controversial lease for its headquarters that consumes approximately one per cent of its entire $1.4-billion budget.

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This year’s financial plan is the first in five years to accurately reflect the CBE’s spending on administration after a provincial review last fall revealed the board was hiding half the $14-million annual expense of its 10-storey headquarters by including it as a cost of classroom instruction.

Board chair Trina Hurdman told trustees before Tuesday’s vote to approve the budget that she worried about the impact of the potential job cuts on children.

“These are the very people in our system who support what happens in our classroom every day,” Hurdman said.

“They are being asked to do more with less.”

Only rookie representative Lisa Davis voted against the budget, which also includes a plan to use about $2.5 million of operating reserves to cover part of what the board claims is a $35-million shortfall in provincial funding that fails to cover additional costs from inflation.

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen rejected that argument.

“Since taking office, we’ve increased base operating funding to the CBE by almost $100 million,” Eggen said in a prepared statement.

“I’m pleased to see that the Calgary Board of Education will be hiring 149 new teachers and support staff thanks to our government’s continued investment.”

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Subject to approval from Eggen, the board is hiking noon supervision fees by 3.9 per cent to $295 and busing charges by 4.5 per cent to $350 in order to cover increased costs for those services.

Amid the cuts outside the classroom, the CBE is adding 23 positions in its payroll department next year as it reverses a problem-plagued decision to contract out key human resource functions to TELUS Sourcing Solutions as part of a 10-year deal that cost $75 million.

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