The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has a small surplus as it continues to work on lowering its deficit.

The Catholic school board ended its fiscal year with a surplus of $190,000.

It's been able to cut its accumulated deficit to $2.2 million, down from $2.4 million.

The board recorded it's highest deficit during the 2007-08 school year when it jumped to $4.7 million.

Mario Iatonna, the executive superintendent of business, says the board continues to "whittle" it away year over year:

"We prepared the budget last June for this current school year - with a number of reductions," Iatonna said. "We had school closures that were implemented for Sept.1 and so, coupled with other reductions, we've made in the board's budget, we hope to improve on reducing that deficit further."

Iatonna will have a further report on spending estimates for 2012-13 at the end of January.

Iatonna says the board has to watch that the classrooms aren't affected.

"We want to keep our student achievement scores high. We don't want to cut so much that it impacts that," he said. "So we're taking a measured approach with the reductions."

The budget results were presented to Norbert Hartmann, the board's provincially appointed supervisor.

Hartmann says he's satisfied with the latest progress.