Living Sky School Division was one of several school divisions invited to make a pre-budget presentation to Saskatchewan's Treasury board recently.
Director of Education Randy Fox said the key person at the meeting was the chair of Treasury Board, deputy premier and Minister of Finance Ken Krawetz, who has also served as minister of education.
"He certainly was genuinely interested, as were others there, not just about our costs but the efforts we're making in trying to move forward in the education sector plan," Fox told the Regional Optimist this week.
Making the presentation, along with Fox, were Lonny Darroch, chief financial officer, curriculum and instruction superintendents Cathy Herrick, Tonya Lehman and Jim Shevchuk, board chair Ken Arsenault and board member Bob Foreman.
"There was a good cross section of staff and board," said Fox.
Krawetz was chairing the meeting, he noted.
"He posed some questions for us," he said. "He seems to be really interested in what we had to say and how some of the decisions that have been made in the past affect us now and going forward."
The division team talked about efforts to improve reading rates and graduation rates, all government priorities, said Fox, adding, "We related to the Treasury Board some of the costs that are associated with that so they had a sense that these things don't happen without some resources put toward them. Generally speaking, I had the sense they were interested in hearing that."
He said their presentation didn't dwell on negatives.
"We talked more about positive things happening in education in this province to try to send the message that those need to continue."
Most importantly, he said, while they accept there are other priorities in the province, "you don't want to see reductions in the education portion of the budget, and hopefully we've made a good case for that."
He said, "Overall, it was a good experience. We'll see what happens in March when the budget comes down."
Last Wednesday, Fox reported on the presentation to the Living Sky School Board of Education regular meeting.
"It was a good experience for us," he said. "We all learned from it."
He said Krawetz, more than anyone else, was really listening to them. When the finance minister heard the division stood to lose $600,000 if proposed changes to the supports for learning funding go through, said Fox, he looked shocked.
It was important for someone like the minister of finance to hear directly from school board and division people how things decided at the provincial level actually come down to the school level, he said.
The Treasury Board members didn't just listen, they asked questions, said Fox, including some about taxation and tax arrears for the division's chief financial officer.
Darroch said they wanted to know how many taxing authorities there were in the division, what the division's tax arrears were as of Dec. 31, 2013, what the division's concerns were around arrears and how much time is devoted to doing tax reconciliations.
Treasury Board leads the budget development process, supporting ministries and agencies in expenditure reviews and providing economic and social policy advice to the government as it makes resource allocation decisions. It oversees the province's General Revenue Fund finances and oversees all ministry budgets.
