NDP, Tories square off over big school board tax increases

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This article was published 12/03/2025 (240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tory MLAs took the Kinew government to task during question period Wednesday over local school boards’ hefty tax hikes for next year.

The River East Transcona School Division detailed plans to raise fees by 15.5 per cent — which amounts to $277 more annually for an average homeowner — to balance its 2025-2026 budget on Monday.

It’s the largest increase to be tabled by any board of trustees in Winnipeg in recent weeks.

Opposition education critic Grant Jackson condemned the proposal that he said is unfair to hard-working families facing U.S. tariff threats and general affordability challenges.

“Will the minister step in and provide additional funding to this school division so they can reduce this tax increase on hard-working families?” Jackson (Spruce Woods) asked Education Minister Tracy Schmidt during a heated debate in the house.

“Or is she content with property owners and people who are struggling to pay their mortgage paying more to keep this government afloat?”

Schmidt (Rossmere) replied that she was proud of the NDP’s latest school funding announcement amounting to a 3.4 per cent increase overall. She noted that figure is well above the 2024 inflation rate.

Last year, the cost of living in Manitoba rose 1.1 per cent — the result of Premier Wab Kinew’s yearlong gas tax holiday.

RETSD received a 6.7 per cent boost for the current school year and 3.4 per cent for next year, she said, calling those figures “a heck of a lot more than they got under the Tories, who did nothing but cut and underfund schools across Manitoba for 7 1/2 years.”

(The 3.4 per cent figure takes into account both provincial and federal funding for school nutrition programs in its 42 schools.)

Brianne Goertzen, who chairs the RETSD board’s finance committee, has said both a lack of provincial funding and inequitable formula are to blame for the rate hike in 2025-2026.

“The NDP abandoned an equitable, fair funding model for school divisions in Manitoba. The result is Manitobans are paying more when they are already stretched,” PC finance critic Lauren Stone said during question period.

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Stone (Midland) tabled documents detailing an 11 per cent tax hike in the Seine River School Division and a 6.8 per cent increase in the Brandon School Division.

In response, Finance Minister Adrien Sala touted the province’s above-inflation increase to school funding in 2025-2026 and new $1,500 flat school tax rebate.

“The level of hypocrisy here is off the charts,” Sala (St. James) added.

The former PC government delayed an overhaul of the education funding review that began in 2021 during the last election year.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.