The Greater Essex County District School Board announced a $6.1-million surplus for the 2017 fiscal year at Tuesday night’s board Meeting.
Vice-Chair Ron LeClair says surplus was a pleasant surprise for trustees — the board's deficit seemed hopeless a year ago.
"Twelve-months-ago we had a $13-million capital deficit, we're now down in the neighbourhood of $4.5-million," he says. "That's a significant improvement for our board."
He says low enrollment numbers, with no relief in sight, contributed to the slide into the red.
"Our enrollment is now up, we've had some significant improvements in our environmental design aspects of our schools, so we're seeing savings from there," says LeClair. "Some of those things are starting to payback."
LeClair tells AM800 news it's quite a turnaround from when he first sat on the board.
"What we'll be able to do is pay down our capital expenditure debt in approximately 2-years, and get that down to zero, which is significant," he says. "When I came to the board we were at around $16-million, some three years ago."
The $6.1-million surplus will fund the Better Places Renewal Initiative and help pay down construction costs of a new LaSalle Public School.
LeClair says the land was essentially mortgaged to construct the new building.