Living Sky School Division Board of Education isn't giving the recent provincial budget high marks, but members are feeling positive about the Ministry of Education's move toward "fixing" the funding formula in the future.
"What hasn't worked is the top-down approach for the last few years," said board vice-chair and Saskatchewan School Boards Association vice-president Ronna Pethick last week. "Not having any collaboration, not feeling the need to get input from boards and our experts in the field, the ministry is realizing in a positive way that that's not working for them, so I see that as a positive step moving forward."
In his report to the board's March 26 meeting, Director of Education Randy Fox said a three-board group of representatives from Living Sky, Prairie Valley and Prairie Spirit met with Minister of Education Minister Don Morgan March 13.
"Minister Morgan recognized there are issues with the current funding model and asked for our input regarding a process to review and revise the model," Fox reported. "Senior staff members from these three divisions are now in a process of developing possible options for this review and revision."
Fox said they hope to have recommendations ready for some time in May.
"The minister was very open to revision of the funding model," said Fox. "He said right away it's not doing what it needs to do, so we were pleased to hear that, and he asked how to go about doing that."
Pethick said, "On budget day, at the pre-budget meeting with all board chairs and senior administration in Regina, the minister announced that they are going to be looking at the funding model province wide, and so he has asked Connie [Bailey], president of the SSBA, for [committee] names going forward, and input, and I know that she is doing that."
As a tri-board, said Pethick, they will have the opportunity to put potential committee names forward, but things will all come together into one process and ultimately it will be the minister who decides who will sit on the committee.
Reviewing the impact of the provincial budget on the Living Sky School Division, Chief Financial Officer Lonny Darroch said recognized expenses are up by about $2.1 million, but this is mainly because of the increase in instructional expenses due to the recent provincial agreement with the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation.
In other categories, funding is mostly down, probably because the efficiency factor expected of school divisions is no longer a line item, but has been applied as reductions throughout.
The one "really puzzling" reduction is around plant operation and maintenance, said Darroch. It's down by more than $290,000. A portion of that may be applicable to the efficiency factor but the big difference is in funded space, he said. Somehow, 50,000 square feet fewer than last year is being recognized by the ministry. Darroch is following up with the ministry to determine how this has happened.
Two pieces of good news were the continued allowance for funds to help transition from the old funding model to the new one, and an increase in PMR funding (preventative maintenance and repair) from $879,000 to a little over a million.
However, better news than they expected doesn’t mean the board has forgotten about the $10 million in funding they’ve lost since the government removed school division’s ability to tax locally.
“We’re not here to whine and cry, but we are getting father behind and not catching up,” said Fox.
This was a status quo budget, the board said – one that doesn’t allow the division to move beyond what it can offer now except through the ingenuity and innovations of its staff.
“It's high quality staff initiatives offsetting the dollars we are not receiving,” said Arsenault, crediting excellent staff and strategies from central office all the way through the schools.
While filling out a “report card” on the budget requested by the SSBA, the board gave grades of mostly C and D in the eight categories of sufficiency, autonomy, equity, engagement, predictability, reciprocal accountability, sustainability and transparency.
