Minister questions rural school division’s proposed 17% tax hike

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This article was published 01/03/2024 (634 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Morden residents are experiencing sticker-shock after trustees proposed a 17 per cent hike to education property taxes to balance the books while meeting the needs of its growing student population.

Elected officials with the Western School Division have been bombarded with feedback since the financial plan for 2024-25 was released Wednesday.

A homeowner with a property valued at $400,000, roughly the average price tag of residences in the division in southern Manitoba, is anticipated to pay $369 more next year. The sum is $184.50 once the province’s 50 per cent rebate program is taken into account.

“It’s a big increase. We have big needs so the reality is that, if we want to have a well-functioning, growing school division, we need to make sure that we have the resources available to do that,” said Brian Fransen, chairman of the board of trustees that oversees the education of 2,200 students.

Fransen attributed this year’s sizable revenue gap to Western’s ballooning enrolment and a recent history of being unable to raise property taxes to address surges. The former Tory government had capped all 37 boards’ abilities to raise revenue via tax hikes.

“There comes a point where we’re painted into a corner,” he said, adding there has been mixed feedback with some describing the proposal as “crazy.”

Education Minister Nello Altomare called the levy request “unusual” and indicated his office met with Western representatives Monday and asked them to find efficiencies.

“We want to make sure we provide the support to them so that they can come up with something a little more reasonable,” Altomare said Friday.

The minister revealed last month, as part of the province’s annual kindergarten-to-Grade 12 funding announcement, that the NDP was reinstating trustee powers to raise levies in consultation with community members.

Gage Haubrich of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the NDP has “opened the floodgates” and what’s happening in Morden is but one example of the fallout of removing the tax freeze.

As far as he is concerned, school boards need to be cognizant that residents are grappling with the same inflationary pressures as them and cut some of their costs accordingly.

Western, which is anticipated to have 150 more children next year, has been allotted 4.1 per cent more in baseline operating funding compared to this year.

The board chairman said the draft budget accounts for inflationary pressures and getting a new school up and running in the fall — a particularly costly endeavour for a small district.

While Western’s latest proposed year-over-year increase would be the largest tabled during his 18-year tenure as a trustee, Fransen insisted operations remain “tight.”

Given area taxpayers have seen significant tax decreases due to an influx of housing and the government’s now-defunct freeze, the 17 per cent hike will roughly restore taxes to 2020 levels, he added.

“Just as objects in the passenger door mirror may be closer than they appear, so rate increases in small communities across Manitoba may seem larger than they actually are,” said Leah Klassen, a vice-president at the Manitoba School Boards Association, in a statement Friday.

The cost of hiring a teacher is roughly the same across the province and yet residents who live in smaller divisions are affected more by that expense than their counterparts in larger districts, said Klassen, who represents boards with fewer than 6,000 students.

The association has long raised concerns about Manitoba’s K-12 funding model and its inherent inequities.

“All tax rates are not created equal, even as the basic needs across each school division most certainly are,” Klassen added.

A new formula is anticipated to dictate funding allotments before the 2025-26 school year.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca