Province boosts school funding, reinstates trustee taxing powers

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This article was published 01/02/2024 (660 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s new government is restoring trustees’ right to raise local property taxes and topping up public school funding above the rate of inflation forecast for 2024.

Ahead of the coming school year, divisions will receive $93.4 million — including $30.5 million for new projects — in additional operating funding.

The province has guaranteed all 37 recipients receive new money, regardless of whether they have lost or gained students over the last year.

“What we’ve heard loud and clear from school divisions is that they need a stable, predictable partner in funding and we’re coming through on that,” Education Minister Nello Altomare told reporters during a news conference at Joseph Teres School in Transcona Thursday.

The property tax offset grant will be held at last year’s level, but the minister indicated there is no longer a strict freeze on local fee hikes.

Under the PC government, school boards were barred from raising taxes and stripped of their offset grant if they challenged that order. Both Seven Oaks and Red River Valley boards defied the directive last year, citing urgent budget pressures.

“School divisions right now will be able to go to local ratepayers and talk to them about their local levy. We trust (them) to make the choices that will impact positively their community,” Altomare said Thursday.

On average, boards will see their baseline funding increase by 3.4 per cent in 2024-25.

The cost of living rose 3.4 per cent in 2023. It’s projected to increase by between two and three per cent this year.

Division allotments range from just under one per cent to 10 per cent.

The sums were calculated based on student population, enrolment fluctuations and an equalization formula that redistributes property tax revenue from wealthy divisions to others that have modest homes and smaller businesses.

The Tories, led by former education minister and teacher Wayne Ewasko, were swift to point out 10 school board budgets — nearly a third of them — are only growing by one per cent or less.

Ewasko, who is now interim leader of the official Opposition, called the news “lackluster” in comparison with the former government’s 2023-24 funding for the sector. After a half-dozen years of austerity measures, the PCs changed course last year and announced an overall increase of six per cent to kindergarten-to-Grade 12 budgets.

“It’s definitely setting the stage for more tax increases for Manitobans, and I’d like to see the education minister and his premier come clean to Manitobans about it,” Ewasko said.

Given the existing funding model does not capture in-year enrolment changes, the department is creating a $6.2-million fund to address costs associated with unanticipated growth.

The River East Transcona School Division has registered 700 students, many of whom are newcomers from Ukraine, since taking the September 2022 headcount that determined its funding for the current school year.

“We didn’t get funding for (those students),” Colleen Carswell, chairwoman of the board of trustees, said.

The Transcona trustee and her colleagues were among those who raised the issue with local MLAs and the education department.

“They are listening, and that gives us a lot of hope as we move forward into the next four years,” Carswell said, adding that is good news for students, families and the division.

Another update to the funding formula — a stopgap not unlike the 2023-24 adjustments, as the province is still developing a new model after a series of delays — includes taking 80 per cent of a division’s unsupported expenses from the prior year into account, up from 66 per cent.

A total of $10.8 million has been set aside for private schools, each of which receives 50 per cent of public school net operating dollars from two years previous to the current funding year as part of a longstanding provincial policy.

The NDP pledged to reduce class lists in elementary schools during the election campaign, although there was no concrete promise to reinstate a cap for kindergarten to Grade 3 or introduce a new threshold.

On Thursday, government officials announced the first phase of a plan to reduce the student-teacher ratio in early years classrooms so there is one certified educator per 20 children across K-3 levels.

The province will require all divisions publish class sizes online, starting in the fall, to ensure they are complying with its guidelines. The department has set aside $3 million, the equivalent of 30 teacher salaries, for new hires across Manitoba schools.

Nathan Martindale, president of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, said he supports any initiative that allows educators to spend more one-on-one time with their students.

“There’s no magic wand that a new government can waive in a single year to erase (the impacts of) seven years of chronic underfunding, but we’re happy to see a positive step in the right direction,” Martindale said about the latest funding announcement.

Included in the overall budget is $30 million, which was previously announced, to establish a “universally accessible nutrition program.”

Details about new meal program grants and reporting requirements will be released by April.

The province’s budget for the sector is upwards of $1.7 billion in total.

Manitoba is slated to introduce a permanent, modern funding formula this time next year that will dictate allotments for 2025-26.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca