The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When it comes to taxes, government bodies are typically requested to keep rates as low as possible. But prior to approving its new budget on Tuesday, the Flin Flon School Board was asked to raise its portion of taxes above what it had already proposed. Three letters reviewed by the board stated that a tax increase was preferable to program cutbacks. The letters were written by two parents of McIsaac School Ecole McIsaac students, a group of school administrators, and the Ruth Betts Parent Council. Faced with financial challenges, the board outlined in its 2004-05 budget the deletion of curling and bowling activities at the elementary school level as well as one trip to Camp Whitney at either the grade 6 or grade 8 level. The budget also calls for a five per cent increase to the special levy, the portion of local property taxes that goes toward education. The City of Flin Flon is required to collect the special levy taxes. The board passed the budget, cuts and all, on Tuesday, going against the wishes of the letter writers. The McIsaac parents wrote that the board "should ask for five per cent-plus from the City of Flin Flon" and needs "to recoup lost ground" that came from a zero per cent special levy increase two years in a row starting in 2000. "When school programs are cut, they will likely never be replaced," read the letter. "Any cuts to programming at any level is not acceptable. We believe that incurring short-term deficits/debt, if necessary, is worth the price to keep existing programs." Meanwhile, the letter from the school administrators stated that their consensus was that "no programs should be cut." It went on to state that the group's first recommendation would be for the board to increase the special levy by 5.2 per cent rather than just five per cent in order to keep the programs as they are. The Ruth Betts Parent Council wrote that the Camp Whitney trips and curling and bowling are "an asset to the academic and social learning of our children." "We would like to see the board find other options rather than just deletion," read the correspondence. "Can we not get money from elsewhere in the funding or even an increase to the taxpayer? This is an option that we would support. We would rather see an increase to taxes than a cut in programming." The feelings conveyed in the letters contrasted those expressed by Mayor Dennis Ballard at the public presentation of the budget last week. "All around the world, everybody's cutting their budgets and traditionally from the school board I hear, 'We can't cut programs,'" the mayor told the trustees. "You know what, I keep saying this, some time you're going to have to face the fact that some programs have to go."
