Rocky View Schools (RVS) has been left scrambling to make up a $10 million shortfall with the release of last week's provincial budget.

RVS board chair Fiona Gilbert says the division is disheartened by the impact of the budget. While it did provide additional monies for enrolment growth as promised, other cuts have taken even more money from the school division's budget.

"Having already cut $2.7 million in classroom improvement funding from the budget last spring, our board will now need to find a significant amount of money, mid-year, to address grant changes made by the government," says Gilbert.

Larry Paul, associate superintendent of business and operations, says people can expect service levels to decrease and class sizes impacted because of the reduction in funding.

Over the next few weeks, the administration will be examining all expenses and potential revenue sources. They will be reporting back to the board of trustees in late November.

"Are there things we can put off? Are there some projects we just can't afford to do anymore? Do we have some reserve that can be allocated?  Those are the conversations going on right now," says Gilbert,

"For any kind of adjustment, there will be an impact felt across the division," says Gilbert.

While the government did fund enrolment growth, they did it at a lower level. To do this, they reallocated base funding from the class-size initiative, designed to provide relief for crowded K-3 classrooms.

Rocky View Schools isn't the only division hurt by the budget.

"We're not the same because we all made different assumptions in the spring, but we're all in a similar boat," says Gilbert.

Whether any new or expanded schools have been included in the budget for Rocky View isn't known yet. Gilbert says Alberta Education plans to release its capital plan in a few weeks.

Doubling the size of Bow Valley High School is the division's top priority in Cochrane.