Halifax school librarians feeling ‘demeaned’ in funding fight between city, province

School librarian Kristen Welbourn says it is horrible to feel uncertainty over who pays for her job and how much longer she might have it.

Welbourn was among a crowd of about 40 people who rallied outside Halifax city hall on Tuesday evening to urge the municipality to keep funding in place for school librarians. 

The Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) pays for about 75 library support specialists through the Halifax municipality’s supplementary education fund, which is unique in the province.

The HRCE and Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) are currently negotiating a new memorandum of understanding guiding how the supplementary funding is spent, and no final decisions have been made public yet.

But Welbourn said she has learned that Halifax councillors recently voted in private to have HRCE not use the supplementary funding for school librarians.

“That leaves a lot of questions if HRM is not going to fund us. Will the [provincial] government fund us? Are our jobs at risk? I don't know,” Welbourn said Monday.

Welbourn, who works at Bay View High School in Upper Tantallon, said she has not gotten a clear answer from the municipal and provincial governments on what is happening. She said members from both levels have been pointing fingers at each other about who is responsible for funding her role.

Halifax’s supplementary education fund is the only one of its kind in Nova Scotia, and is one of two education funds the municipality is legally required to collect through property taxes.

It was created in 1996 during HRM’s amalgamation, and is required within the Halifax charter. The legislation states that council can only cut the fund by 10 per cent each year. 

The supplementary fund amounted to nearly $13 million for HRCE overall this school year, with about $2.5 million of that covering librarians. 

The HRCE describes the fund as a way to “enhance learning opportunities for students” beyond core education. While it has supported a broad range of services in the past, this school year funding went to staffing and programming for fine arts and music, librarians, and social workers.

Halifax also has the mandatory education charge all municipalities collect for the province.

In the upcoming 2026-27 budget, Halifax expects to collect and send $226.8 million to the province for mandatory education, an increase of about $16 million (seven per cent) over last year.

“I think when HRCE went beyond arts, that caused the problem. They were … taking advantage of the supplementary funding to backfill gaps in positions they had,” Coun. Tony Mancini said Tuesday.