EAST CENTRAL — The North East School Division received less money from the province through the provincial budget then they had hoped for.
“It will be a challenging 2019-20 budget for the school division. The amount that we received for an increase will not be sufficient,” said Wanda McLeod, the division’s superintendent of business administration.
The funding for the division increased by approximately $300,000 from the 2018 to 2019 year. This is after a $45,000 reduction of funding for lower enrollment projections.
“Just the teacher’s salary increase of one per cent on Aug. 31 will be around that [$300,000] amount,” McLeod said. “There will be other cost drivers such as carbon pricing, general inflation, and also as people progress in the steps in the collective agreement.”
While the funding has risen from last year, since the 2015-16 school year, funding for the division has decreased by about $3 million with only approximately $440,000 being related to enrolment declines.
“It’s definitely making us bring our A-game as far as administration goes because there are going to have to be decisions being made,” said Luke Perkins, the division’s board chair.
The division doesn’t have a plan for how to accommodate the next school year with the amount of funds.
School preventative maintenance funding increased by about $200,000 from the previous year. Currently in 2019 to 2020 the maintenance funding for the division is approximately $1.8 million. This money is for facility projects for the school division.
“Our PMR funding did increase, so that’s definitely a good news item,” McLeod said.
The proposed new school for Carrot River remains on the Ministry of Education’s Top 10 major capital requests listing.
The division remains hopeful in the coming years it will receive funding for the school.
“We do think being in a position as we are based on what we know provincially that we are close to approval,” said Don Rempel, the division’s director of education.
“Hudson Bay was approved with about a three or four year turnaround from when we identified the need to when it was approved. That was the quickest we’ve seen.”
