Rural Manitoba school divisions struggling with budget decisions in spite of funding increase

Psychologists, crossing guards and buses for field trips could all be cut back at schools in a southeastern Manitoba division struggling to budget for the upcoming year with what it calls inadequate funding.

Hanover School Division board chair Ron Falk said the money the division got this year was supposed to be a 9.3 per cent increase over last year. But last year, it got additional funding for things like wages and student support. With that factored in, the increase this year is actually more like 1.8 per cent.

"I've been on the board for 30 years and I would say this is, for Hanover … the worst by a mile," Falk said.

"It's not a very happy story these days."

Last month, the provincial government announced every school division would get at least a 2.5 per cent increase in operating dollars for the upcoming year.

For Hanover, the increase came out to $2 million, between operating support and the property tax offset grant, according to a document the province shared at the time.

But that increase doesn't keep pace with rising costs for the division, and it's now looking to cut about $2.7 million from the upcoming year's budget — the equivalent of about 27 teachers, Falk said. 

Reductions in everything from educational assistants to school programs are being considered to find those savings before the division completes its budget in the next few weeks. It's already decided to freeze budgets for things like maintenance and transportation, he said.

And as it considers reducing spending on specialists like psychologists, the biggest challenge will be keeping enough mental health support for students who need it — a number that grew during the pandemic, he said.

"There will be some things that we don't want to have to do, but we're going to have to," he said.

"It is very discouraging. There's no question about that."

It's a similar story in the Interlake School Division just north of Winnipeg, where board chair Alan Campbell said the equivalent of 5.6 full-time teaching positions will have to be cut.

The province said last month the division got an $800,000 increase in funding.

Campbell said while Interlake got a two per cent funding boost, it comes after years of cuts that meant the division had to get rid of its junior kindergarten and continuing education programs and hold off on getting new buses.