Cutbacks are in the works for some Saskatchewan school divisions after the delivery of the Ministry of Education’s $2.2 billion budget.
Thirteen of the province’s 28 school divisions will have their provincial funding reduced compared to last year’s budget, including the North East School Division, which faces the largest decline, a reduction of about 3.6 per cent.
The division’s director of education, Don Rempel, said part of the reason is declining enrolment at its schools. Despite plans to eliminate two learning consultants and a superintendent, the division will work to keep cuts out of the classroom, he said.
“We’re not going to decline any of our teaching or school-day staff. We’re going to work with our distribution model as far as our school-based teachers and support staff as status quo, and we’re going to make adjustments in services outside of schools. We’ll do the best we can with the resources we have.”
Rempel said the division will redistribute duties among remaining superintendents and support services, and with student populations declining by 70 to 100 students annually for the last decade, it will be able to meet demand.
Education Minister Don Morgan said the ministry will look for ways to help divisions find savings, and he understands the process may be difficult, adding funding is based on enrolment.
“There is a lot of really good and really competent people within the divisions, so our expectation and our hope is that they roll up their sleeves and try and find efficiencies and economies and start sharing things,” he said.
“We’ve looked to them in the past to try and find efficiencies, and this year we’re doing it again.”
Morgan said divisions have autonomy to make staffing decisions, and job losses are “quite possible.”
He has not had any discussions within the ministry so far about dictating where cuts should occur, he said.
“We have never had to do that in the past. We’ve usually had divisions that have asked for (help) and wanted to work with us on things,” Morgan said.
When asked if the ministry might examine imposing such help, he said, “We certainly have the right to do it.
“We have the ability to do things like that. So I don’t hold it out as a threat or anything. I say to divisions, ‘Work with us,’ and they’ve been good in the past.”
Connie Bailey, President of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association.
Saskatchewan School Boards Association president Connie Bailey said her organization has started asking divisions what the budget allocations will mean for them.
“Every school division is going be affected differently by this budget,” she said. “We are in the process of surveying our divisions as they finish off their budget process, so we could understand all of the implications of what this budget means.”
Saskatoon’s two major school divisions indicated mid-year funding adjustments and money for Syrian refugees and preventative building maintenance are welcome, but it’s likely they’ll have to dip into their operating budgets to fund a previously bargained salary increase for teachers.
“Essentially, the pie is marginally larger, but the piece that each student receives is smaller,” Greater Saskatoon Catholic school board chair Diane Boyko said in an interview on budget day. Saskatoon Public school board chair Ray Morrison said staff cuts are not on the table, but the division is looking hard to find efficiencies.
Cuts to band programs and school counsellors are also planned in the Prairie South School Division, which serves the Moose Jaw area.
A recent memo sent to Prairie Spirit staff and parents said 14 teaching positions and 60 educational associate positions will be cut for the 2016-17 year. The teacher reductions and a third of the associate positions will be cut through attrition, while the remainder will be layoffs, the memo noted.
The division also said no new teachers will be hired to accommodate enrolment growth.
Carla Beck, education critic with the Saskatchewan NDP, in a photo from 2014, when she was a Regina public school board trustee.
The opposition NDP has been vocal about the cuts, raising concerns during question period at the Saskatchewan Legislature earlier this week.
“When will this Minister finally admit that this government’s budget is failing our kids?” Education critic Carla Beck asked.
“This budget failed to provide just the basics of what schools need right now,” she said Friday, adding she feels it does not provide enough support for growing enrolment and student needs like mental health issues and student counselling.
The Ministry of Education has scheduled a meeting with school divisions to discuss the budget on June 17.
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— With Leader-Post files from D.C. Fraser and Ashley Martin