SOSD faces challenges to keep costs low

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This article was published 04/03/2019 (2623 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Seven Oaks School Division is facing significant challenges trying to keep costs as low as possible.

On Feb. 25, SOSD held its public budget presentation at the Seven Oaks Performing Arts Centre, where division officials pointed out the difficulties in the 2019-2020 draft budget, that will support 25 schools and more than 12,000 students.

Despite the odds, SOSD was able to keep the tax increase to two per cent, which translates to an $8.99 increase for the average home valued at approximately $300,000.

This year, the absence of a provincial funding increase, continued enrolment growth, and limited commercial assessment are putting a lot of the load on residential taxpayers. Superintendent Brian O’Leary said they have been steadily growing their enrolment due to new residential developments south of Templeton Avenue, Aurora North Point and Trails of West St. Paul. He added they are often rushing to address the needs of their facilities to accommodate the growing number of students.

“When we look at budget increases, we are budgeting each year for additional positions so that we can staff those classes and offer quality programming for more and more kids,” he said.

The division is currently constructing an eight-classroom addition at Amber Trails Community School which will open this spring and provide additional classrooms for a school that was built for 600 students and currently holds 800. They will soon break ground on a new kindergarten to Grade 5 dual track school on Templeton Avenue, east of Pipeline Road that will open in September 2020. However, the division still has 46 portables in use.

SOSD funding comes from resident homeowners and businesses taxes and from the province. Compared to any other school division in the city, SOSD has more residential homeowners and fewer commercial businesses. The value of commercial property in Seven Oaks is $422 million, compared to $1.75 billion in St. James-Assiniboia School Division.

“We’ve advocated for more equalization measures, and they are very similar to what exists between provinces… Equalization funds for education should even out the tax load and should even out opportunities for kids.”

SOSD’s operating cost per pupil is $12,074, below the provincial average of $12,820. The mill rate in Seven Oaks is 16.5 while the provincial average is 13.6.

“We have a gap in expenditure that is not fair to our students, and we have a gap in taxes that is not fair to our taxpayers,” O’Leary said.

“Our challenge is that we have no increase in funding, low commercial assessment, continued enrolment growth, and going forward if we don’t get some greater fairness, we have a continuing disadvantage for our students and taxpayers.”

O’Leary explained that the budget resources will be allocated to where they make the most difference, as per the direction of the board of trustees — in the classroom and programs that engage students.

According to the Financial Reporting and Accounting for Manitoba Education, SOSD spends 82.8 per cent of its budget directly supporting students, compared with the provincial average of 78.8 per cent. He said SOSD is consistently one of the most cost-effective school divisions in Manitoba, with only 2.7 per cent of their budget going to administration — 10 per cent below the provincial cap.

The province has brought up amalgamation of school divisions as a solution for saving money and resources in education, but SOSD is opposed to the idea and referred to many studies conducted in the early 2000s that suggested the savings would be too little for the amount of work put in to make the changes. O’Leary said an amalgamation would put a lot of things at risk and encouraged community members to share their opinion with the province.

The budget is scheduled to be up for approval during the division’s next meeting on March 4.