Pembina Trails budget-balancing plan calls for 9.9 per cent levy increase

The Pembina Trails School Division is proposing a 9.9 per cent hike in its local levy to balance its budget next year.

Secretary-treasurer Scott Carleton released an outline of the division’s $272.5-million plan for 2026-27 on Thursday.

It relies on increasing the local mill rate from 10.811 to 11.881.

Carleton’s calculations suggest that translates into the average ratepayer, with a property valued at $531,800, paying about $155.82 more per year.

That calculation takes into account the province’s $1,600 tax credit.

“The increase in funding we’ve received from the province has not kept pace with inflation over the last couple of years so that’s created challenges for us,” Carleton told the board room at 181 Henlow Bay during a public meeting Thursday.

The province topped up baseline operating funding for the division by $706,480, or 0.9 per cent this year. Pembina Trails is also receiving $348,066 to harmonize teacher salaries under a new provincial contract.

Manitoba’s inflation rate was 2.7 per cent last year.

Carleton spoke about growing enrolment pressures, particularly in Waverley West, in the division encompassing 37 schools in southwest Winnipeg.

The board is projecting enrolment to grow by 464 students, up to 17,971 next year.

In a bid to maintain class sizes, the draft budget includes hiring the full-time equivalent of 41 new teachers and 93 educational assistants.

The former includes the division’s first reading clinician and 16 classroom teachers.

The proposal also sets aside funding to expand Indigenous education courses in high schools.

Superintendent Shelley Amos said the plan responds to community members’ feedback in favour of more front-line support in schools.

“The real priorities that have risen are smaller class sizes, additional teaching staff, additional supports for students, primarily in the form of EAs to support complex needs of students and mental health and well-being,” Amos said.

The 2026-27 document includes a 20 per cent year-over-year increase in the student support services budget.

Asked about whether there are any reductions, Carleton said some non-salary expenditures are being postponed.

“(There’s) nothing we’ve really taken out of the budget,” the chief financial officer said.

Cindy Nachtigall, chair of the board of trustees, said in a news release Friday that savings are being found by deferring staffing additions, technology and maintenance.

Tanis Thiessen, a principal and resident in the division, was the sole public representative at the in-person meeting on Thursday.

Thiessen endorsed the board’s continued expansion of its itinerant substitute pool.

Knowing there’s an extra employee available for coverage allows her to wake up at 6 a.m. with “relaxed shoulders,” she said.

These employees are called on for backup when a teacher cannot secure a substitute and there’s an “unfilled” position.

Trustees are considering two additions to this pool in 2026-27.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca