One month has now passed since the official closure of classrooms across Saskatchewan on March 20 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With the impact still unable to be calculated by all levels of government, the financial effect is also a question mark at this point for the Chinook School Division.

"Since the closure of the classrooms, it's too soon to say. We haven't had enough time to know," said Rod Quintin, Chief Financial Officer with the Division.

A general forecast is about all Quintin said they're able to predict at this point for the effect of the pandemic on their finances.

"We can reasonably expect that things like utilities will be less. We can reasonably expect that because we're not operating school buses, the consumption costs for fuel, oil, and repairs will be less, but we don't know exactly what that would be."

New elements will be factoring into that effect - one being the cost of delivering educational materials to students' homes. It's a process that Quintin said they'll be tracking the cost of.

"Our net costs will likely still be less than what we had planned to spend throughout the year," he said. "So, we're probably in a position now where we would expect to have our total expenses be less than what we thought they were going to be for this fiscal year. But, we can't really say what that number will be until we get a sense of a pattern."

Other areas that Quintin noted would be a financial factor are the lack of substitute teacher and support staff costs.

The Chinook School Division's most recent Financial Status Report - noted late last week in the April edition of their Directions Newsletter - announced that revenues were at 49.3 percent of budget and expenditures were at 52.4 percent of budget for the period between September 2019 and February 2020.

"In terms of the (2019-20 budget) plan, we're close - maybe slightly tracking under on our expenses, but nothing alarming either way," Quintin said of the period prior to the pandemic.

Quintin added that the Division will better be able to assess the financial impact for their third-quarter financial statement. As well, he said the publicly-available year-end report will also provide a more concrete look.