On Mar. 7, during a week with only two instructional days due to professional development and winter storm-related school closures, Fort La Bosse School Division trustees and senior administration presented an overview of their 2024/25 budget. The presentation, slated to take place the day previous, also had to be postponed due to the blast of winter.
Secretary-Treasurer Kent Reid highlighted the projected increase in enrolment to 1,560 students, up 55 from the previous school year.
“We’re growing in terms of student enrolment in our division for sure,” he said.
As a result, the division’s current complement of 118 teachers is set to increase and there are provisions for more speech language clinician time.
“We are budgeting to hire an additional three teachers this year,” Reid said. “We’ve had significant enrolment growth over the last few years.”
Meanwhile, the province has mandated the implementation of a universally accessible nutrition program in all schools across Manitoba, which is to be up and running in time for classes in September. Details, however, are still being finalized and the division awaits a template spelling out how the new initiative will be implemented.
“This is a priority of government,” Reid said. “There was $30 million in additional funding for the (entire) province. We will get our share of that, $232,000 to put this program in place in all of our buildings for the next school year.”
Reid, Supt. Barry Pitz, who participated in the meeting via telephone, and Board of Trustees Chair Craig Russell all agreed that the need is ever-present and the assistance will pay dividends.
“The money will be certainly welcome,” Pitz said. “New dollars to the division to support kids who are struggling as well as families.”
Education Minister Nello Altomare removed restrictions put in place by the previous government seven years ago, which limited the ability for school divisions to raise additional revenue locally through property taxation. This has translated into a 3.7% increase in the special levy for Fort La Bosse ratepayers and an average hike in the mill rate of .012 mills or 1.6%. Reid calls it “responsible,” but heeded the advice to tread cautiously.
“I got a clear message for from the province that they’ll be watching closely in terms of what school divisions do with their property taxes this year, because it will be a significant piece of what a new (funding) formula looks like.”
For a residential property assessed at $250,000 this will translate into $17.91 more in education taxes. For farmland assessed at $500,000 the increase will be $16.33 and commercial/other property owners with $500,000 in assessment will pay $143.90 more.
By formula, the division received a 5.9% increase in provincial funding for the next school year, which amounts to $575,000. With the money designated for the nutrition program removed, it is reduced to 3.5%. A balanced budget is projected, with revenue and expenses of $21,571,758 reflecting a 6% increase. Total funding from the province will be $11,772,877.
Reid stressed that the focus overall is to maintain existing supports and programming, taking into account the effect of inflation and price volatility.
“We fight with volatility in our fixed costs,” he said. He cited a 10% jump in insurance premiums as an example and other increases in essentials such as fuel, utilities, cleaning supplies and bus parts. Operating costs in total amount to about $14,660 per student.
In terms of collective bargaining, agreements have been settled with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) covering support staff until 2027, while the Manitoba Teachers Society contract is now set provincially.
“The previous government brought in provincial bargaining for teachers and that process is moving slowly, but it’s moving,” Reid said. “We have to make some projections and some guesstimates as to costs that could come from that so that has been considered in our budget.”
After a period of adjusting to austerity, Pitz summed up the budget process as positive overall for the next school year.
“We’re not eliminating anything that we already have and we’re fortunate to be able to add three teachers and get a bit of support in our student services where we’ve identified a need,” he said. “There’s lots of reasons that our numbers just seem to make sense this year in terms of trying to accommodate the division as best we can and trying to remain responsible to government and the taxpayer.”
The 2024/25 budget was passed unanimously during the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees on March 11.
