Number: 3.621

Title: Authorization to Spend Funds

Effective date: January 2009

Approved date: June 2014

Supersedes: 3.621 Authorization to Spend Funds

Dated: April 2005

General Principle

The administration is charged with managing the budgets in an efficient and timely manner. The board’s control of spending is limited to the event of a significant drop in the anticipated transfer to capital, and the control of significant unbudgeted expenditure.

Policy

1. Once the operational and capital budgets have been approved by the board, and provided the anticipated transfer to capital remains above 80% of the budgeted amount, the head of school is authorized to commit and spend the funds necessary for the execution of the educational, co-curricular and capital programs, up to the budgeted amounts and within the budget year.

2. Expenditure on items not included in the budget, or above the budgeted amounts, may be permitted, subject to the following conditions and limits before the expenditure is committed or spent. Any non-budgeted spending that does not meet all the relevant conditions must be approved by the board before the expenditure is committed or spent. All non-budgeted expenditures will be advised regularly to the chair of the finance committee, and incorporated into the regular reports to the finance committee, according to policy 3.20, paragraph 6.

2.1 The anticipated transfer to capital after allowance for the non-budgeted expenditure is allowed for must remain above 80% of the budgeted amount.

2.2 Extra faculty positions may be approved by the head of school if warranted by higher enrolment within a division or grade, or by a shift in enrolment distribution that necessitates extra specialist faculty within the board-approved student-teacher (FTE) ratio. The costs of these extra faculty will be defined as the net cost, i.e. the cost less any enrolment gains.