WINDSOR -- Thanks to a rise in enrollment, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board is dealing with a multi-million dollar surplus.

During Tuesday night’s board meeting it was announced the board has a $3-million surplus for 2019.

The board saw 403 new students enrolled in classrooms around the region, bringing the total to more than 20,500 pupils.

The board now has $17-million in accumulated surplus.

Board chairperson Fulvio Valentinis says the school board was originally forecasting a deficit.

“When you say surplus, people think that's money that you have to spend on automatically, but there's all kinds of things, you know. There's future employee benefits that you pay out in terms of when people go on pension and so forth, so if you don't have money set aside for that, that could be a significant hit,” says Valentinis.