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.
Diminished provincial funding has Creighton school trustees slightly reducing staff and re-examining when to replace absent employees. The Saskatchewan government will cut funding for the Creighton School Division by about 228,000, or four per cent, this fall. Bob Smith, director of education for the division, said that will mean 'some minor staffing tweaking,' including reducing half a position in the community school program. He said the division will also try to draw less money from staff replacement budgets, used when an employee is absent due to illness, professional development or earned time off. See 'Guide...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 'Our plan is to try and reduce our expenditures in these staff replacement budgets by developing guidelines regarding when a person needs to be replaced,' Smith said. Saskatchewan has implemented a new funding model for school divisions that is less generous to Creighton t h a n t h e p r e v i o u s model. Whereas the province is contributing $5.84 million in base funding in 2012-13, the allocation in 2013-14 will be $5.62 million. That is not the sole source of funding for the Cr e i g h t o n S c h o o l Division, whose overall budget will only drop by about $10,000 this fall. But context is needed. For one, the division gets government grants to be used for specific purposes, such as helping at-risk youth transition to the workforce. For another, the division's total budget includes student fundraisers, for events like school trips, that cannot go toward general operating expenses. Comparing budgets year over year can be tricky for another reason: revenue from property taxes varies. The bottom line for the Creighton School Division is a new financial reality that will require relatively minor changes in how its lone s c h o o l , C r e i g h t o n Community School, operates. Angela Chobanik, Saskatchewan's acting executive director of education funding, said the province's new funding model was devised with feedback from vari o u s s t a k e h o l d e r s , including school divisions. The process included a look at which costs are higher for northern divisions compared to divisions, she said. The overall goal was to distribute education dollars to divisions in 'an equitable way,' Chobanik said, adding that transitional funding was given to help divisions adjust to changes. Chobanik said every division in the province has to make decisions on how to balance budgets, with local trustees having the autonomy to decide how best to accomplish that. While this fall will mean slightly tighter spending restrictions in Creighton, the division turned a surplus of $190,000 in 2011-12. Earlier this year, trustees allocated most of the leftover funds, $150,000, to facility-related projects to be determined. A provincial infrastructure official is to tour the school this fall to provide direction on future capital projects. T h e r e m a i n i n g $40,000 of the surplus will go into the division's vehicle replacement fund, which will eventually buy a new minibus. Several years ago, the division purchased a minibus to transport school teams to tournaments. It will eventually need to be replaced at an anticipated cost of $70,000 to $80,000.
