Beautiful Plains facing ‘tough budget’

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This article was published 12/01/2016 (3910 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For at least one Westman school division, next year will come with less money to work with per student — despite last week’s heavily touted provincial announcement of the funding increases.

Beautiful Plains School Division, centred in Carberry and Neepawa, is getting a budget-to-budget increase of $475,000 for 2016-17. But when their totals are broken down to a per-pupil basis, the funding increase touted by the government disappears.

BPSD secretary-treasurer Gord Olmstead said his department will have to budget with $195 less per pupil in 2016-17 over the year previous — about a three per cent drop — which will “cause difficulty with the upcoming budget.”

What each division receives is decided by a formula, which, “as complex as it is, (is) also eminently fair,” said Education and Advanced Learning Minister James Allum in an interview with The Brandon Sun last week.

Nearby divisions like Fort La Bosse and Southwest Horizon, which aren’t seeing appreciable growth year-to-year, benefit from a guarantee built into the formula that guarantees they won’t receive less money than the year before.

“Those divisions on the guarantee, if they had any reduction or decline in enrolment, will see an increased support-per-pupil — where Beautiful Plains is seeing a decrease,” Olmstead said.

“It’s going to be a tough budget for us, no question.”

In the Wheat City, the sum of money the Brandon School Division has received in recent years has grown significantly — a fact Allum pointed out after his announcement.

“Funding increases to Brandon School Division have increased by 37 per cent or $48 million over the last four years,” said Allum last week.

“For good reason, Brandon is a growing community with growing needs and the formula takes into consideration those kinds of factors,” he added.

When the amount of money from the provincial government out is divided on a per-pupil basis, last week’s announcement amounts to a continuation of what’s been supplied in year’s past.

Over the last seven years, the province has supplied between 61.2 per cent and 63 per cent of the BSD total budget, with the 2015-16 budget being the lowest.

BSD board chair Mark Sefton said even though his division is also growing, BSD escaped the situation BPSD facing.

“The province has a tough job to do and we’re always there with out hand out whether it’s funding for a new school or wanting more funding for our programs so they’ve got a tough job as well,” he said.

The tenor of this year’s announcement was very similar to previous years, said Sefton.

The only thing Sefton said was different about this year was that the minister publicized the specific dollar amount BSD received on the day of the announcement.

(Last year) “About a week after the announcement he said, ‘well for Brandon it means ‘x’ per cent and ‘x’ dollars, not on the day of the announcement,” he said.

Kelly Saunders, a political science professor at Brandon University, said such announcements aren’t uncommon ahead of an election.

“If you look at what the previous Conservative government did federally (last election), here in Brandon-Souris, … I think it was $29 million in new or repackaged funding in the six weeks leading up to the writ being dropped,” she said.

“We know what the polls are showing, we know they are in trouble and we know what the financial situation is like, so they’d be doing that even more than what a typical government is doing. (Education investment) is something voters support and it’s a hot-button issue for a lot of voters for sure,” she said.

“It’s natural that everyone looks at it through their own lens,” Sefton concluded.

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