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.
Jonathon Naylor Editor A change in how the Manitoba government funds education is causing the Flin Flon School Board some budgetary angst. Earlier this year, the NDP terminated the Tax Incentive Grant (TIG), which had been doled out annually to school divisions that, like Flin Flon, hold the line on property taxes. This carried no repercussions for Flin Flon in the board's 2012-13 budget, finalized last winter. Even with TIG gone, the province gave the board the same amount of funding it received through the grant the previous year, some $750,000. But now there are questions as to how much the NDP will provide this year and whether trustees will raise their portion of property taxes for the first time since 2007. Trustee Angela Simpson said trustees hope to receive adequate funding from the province so there won't be a need to go to residents for more dollars. 'That's what we all want,' she said, speaking at last week's board meeting. Trustee Murray Skeavington, board chair, said the last word from Education Minister Nancy Allan was that TIG money would be incorporated into school boards' budgets. See 'We'll..' on pg.14 Continued from pg. 1 'So where that goes from there, I guess we'll find out in two and a half months,' he said, referring to the province's pending announcement on education funding for 2013-14. Trustee Glenn Smith said Minister Allan has made reassuring statements to the board. 'We expressed our worry to the minister and she kind of said, 'You shouldn't worry too much,'' he said. But it remains to be seen whether education will be the next target of cost-cutting for a provincial government attempting to balance the books. So far in 2012, the province has eliminated a subsidy that maintained several Greyhound bus routes and cut overnight highway snow-clearing except when there is a snow storm. Opposition politicians have alleged the NDP has a secret plan for more forced school division amalgamations, but those have been met with denials thus far. The province's forced amalgamations of 2001 were opposed by many in the impacted communities, where there was apprehension that larger divisions would be less responsive to individual town needs. Northern Manitoba felt the sharpest impact, with half of its divisions dispatched. Snow Lake, Leaf Rapids and Lynn Lake were gobbled up by the Frontier School Division. Churchill also joined Frontier, but voluntarily. Across the province, 17 divisions were eliminated, taking the total from 54 to 37 in time for the school board elections of October 2002. In 2012-13, the Flin Flon School Board budgeted total spending of $12.9 million _ or $12,600 per student.
