With the recent appointment of Scott Moe as Saskatchewan’s premier, it did not take him long for new funding changes.
Moe announced on Feb. 6, $7.5 million in funding effective immediately to go towards “school divisions to assist in dealing with front line pressures,” said that Saskatchewan.ca press release.
“Over the last several months, I have heard from parents and educators that additional funding is essential to ensure that our children receive the highest quality education possible,” Premier Moe said in the press release. “This $7.5 million in immediate funding will put essential classroom supports in place before we introduce the full amount of $30 million in the 2018-19 budget.”
Moe told reporters during the post announcement interview that the $7.5 million is a good starting point for the school boards to start addressing staffing issues as the government will work towards ensuring that $30 million is part of the 2018 -2019 provincial budget currently in the works.
“You don’t just go from zero to full speed when hiring these resources, these people and individuals, whether they be educational assistants or whether they be other professionals who are needed in our classrooms.”
Horizon School Division Director of Education Kevin Garinger says that Horizon will receive just under $315,000 of the $7.5 million.
Even though Garinger is grateful to the Ministry of Education and the Government of Saskatchewan for the fund as well as future funding increases, this is a drop in the bucket considering the previous cuts to funding for education.
“We’ve got to remember that they cut $3.5 million last year because the impact of the funding reduction was $54 million to education. This will bring us back to half of where we were,” says Garinger.
Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, Gord Wyant, says that while this is not the full amount cut last year from education, it is a start of a continuing commitment to the sector.
“It recognizes what we heard throughout the campaign...it signifies our commitment to this sector and that’s going to continue in terms of our ongoing dialogue with our partners in education.”
With increases that will occur, the division is still looking at tightening their budget to sustain lower class sizes and PTR rates, says Garinger.
Even with more funding coming for the 2018-2019 school year, Garinger says that he can see that funding going to support population growth, which means other divisions will be receiving a bigger slice of the pie, and Garinger is okay with that, he says.
“When you’re looking at 2,000 more children in the school systems across the province, most of which are in the large urban centres, the majority of that influx of money is going there...they need support to meet the needs of their students.”
Staffing and support is an ongoing issue within Horizon but Garinger says the additional funding from the province will help continue addressing those needs, including educational assistance and counselling support.
“We’ve been doing that ongoing work. Where the needs have arisen, we have responded and so it’s made it fairly tight with our HR budget as it is so it will go to support the overages that may have already existed.”
The funding will be distributed through the Ministry of Education using a funding formula to address needs within Saskatchewan classrooms, said the press release, with the ministry working closely with school divisions “to ensure the mid-school year funding increase is distributed as quickly as possible.”
