The overall budget for kindergarten to Grade 12 education services in Saskatchewan may have gone up slightly, but not in the southeastern sector, according to information garnered last week from the South East Cornerstone Public School Division.
Shelley Toth, chief financial officer for the Cornerstone division, said the local public school system will be absorbing a $2 million cut in operations funding, which could lead to a number of implications and action plans that have yet to be developed.
Cornerstone’s revenue statement showed total funding of $107.3 million in 2015-16.
While the rest of the province sees a one per cent hike in funding support, Cornerstone is taking a 2.1 per cent hit on the negative side.
“That does not include debt repayment for capital loans though,” said Toth, noting that the province’s Ministry of Education is responsible for this funding since they now receive the property taxation revenues and allocate the funds for debt payments on all school capital projects such as the recently completed rebuilding of the Weyburn Comprehensive School.
“Last year, we received an increase of 3.6 per cent,” Toth said, when asked how this year’s funding compared with previous allocations under the government plan.
“We did receive an increase for maintenance and renewal projects of about $389,000 to a total of $1.9 million,” Toth added, referring to the ongoing need to continue roof repairs and other minor repair jobs on the school system’s 38 facilities, the head office in Weyburn, and the division’s bus garages and repair depots.
Toth said the plan was for the division’s leadership team to get together to discuss the implications, now that the budget cut has been confirmed, and to develop a list of options for the board of trustees to consider when they meet again. She said the board will probably convene for an informal mid-month session and then a more formal action plan will be developed in time for the next board meeting, which has been rescheduled for June 28.
“The finished budget has to be ready for the ministry by the end of June, so that doesn’t leave us much time,” she said.
Toth said Cornerstone was hoping to receive some word regarding their application to decommission and then demolish the former Weyburn Junior High School since it is empty with the Grade 7 to 9 students now enrolled in the refinished Weyburn Comprehensive School.
There was also an application to rebuild a replacement for two aging elementary schools in Weyburn but, “there were no capital announcements other than the projects that are already underway throughout the province. Certainly no capital projects for our division,” said Toth.
Even though some school divisions received minor boosts in funding, pretty well all of them will be holding tight with status quo budgets for the rest of the fiscal year, or, in Cornerstone’s case, a cut in financial support.
The Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division trustees met in Weyburn the night of June 1, the same day as the budget was brought down, so their trustees and administration had very little time to discuss the implications. It was noted in their minutes that certain impacts of the budget had been brought to their table that night for consideration.
“I don’t think anybody is a big winner anywhere in the province this time around,” said Toth.
