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.
Commentary by Jonathon Naylor Why do so many residents expect Flin Flon City Council to cut costs but give the Flin Flon School Board a pass? After all, both are publicly funded and elected entities that share the authority to make our property taxes go up (usually) or down (rarely). Some numbers. City council's budget soared 30 per cent, from $9 million to $11.7 million, between 2006 and 2012. During that same time frame, Flin Flon's population actually decreased by four per cent, or 244 people. Between 2006-07 and 2013-14 (barring a surprise defeat of their proposed budget), the school board's budget has shot up 22 per cent, from $10.9 million to $13.3 million. We don't know what enrollment will be this fall, when the latest budget takes effect, but we do know that between 2006 and 2012, overall enrollment dropped 9.8 per cent, or 113 students. In both cases, spending is far outpacing the number of beneficiaries _ Flin Flon citizens and Flin Flon students. City council spent about $1,542 per resident in 2006 and $2,092 in 2012. The school board spent about $9,513 per student in 2006 and $12,452 per pupil this year. See 'Expect...' on pg. 7 Continued f rom pg. 1 Is life for your average Flin Flonner better by $550 a year now than it was then? Is each student really getting education that is worth $2,939 more than it was a little over six years ago? That's subjective, of course. What cannot be disputed is that the public's expectations of city council and the school board are markedly different. City council faces a barrage of demands to limit spending, and is often forced to publicly defend even the most mundane of budget items. Our mayor and council have been gossiped about on Facebook, approached on the street by angry taxpayers and, twice in the past year, expelled foul-mouthed critics from the Council Chambers. By contrast, it would seem, school trustees have it pretty easy. I'm not saying they don't take some heat, both warranted and otherwise, but they are plainly not the whipping boys our councillors have become. So again, why is that? Some of it has to do with visibility. The school board has never carried the same high profile as city council. How many residents can even name all seven trustees? Some of it has to do with the freedom afforded by the NDP government. City council has a lot of leeway in terms of expenditures, capital projects, bylaws and so on. The school board, by contrast, can barely buy a pencil without the green light from Winnipeg. Get upset So it's much easier to get upset with city council over a decision they made on their own free will than it is with a school trustee who was just doing what he or she was mandated to do. It is also important to note that it is the city that sends out the property tax bills for both itself and the school division. A lot of people think their entire tax bill is going to the city, which is not the case at all. Then there are the optics. Trimming a municipal budget in a shrinking community sounds reasonable to most people. But cutting a school budget? It conjures up horrible images of beloved teachers being yanked out of the arms of crying children. It equates to putting the very future of our children at risk! The NDP knows this and has therefore twisted open an ever-flowing tap of cash for public education. Even if a school division loses dozens of students every year, as is usually the case in Flin Flon, the province still doles out more and more money. And so hard spending decisions in education can, to a large degree, be postponed or eliminated entirely. Keep the same programs. Keep the same number of schools. Maintain or even add staff. Everyone's happy. Heck, even if a school board decides it would still like to diminish spending by closing a school, the NDP won't necessarily let them. School boards must get the permission of Education Minister Nancy Allan first. Things have gotten to the point where there is a school in Prawda, Manitoba, which, according to the Winnipeg Free Press, stays open even though it has just seven students. Seven! Of course there's no such law to keep other valuable facilities, used by far more people, open. If Flin Flon's Aqua Centre or Whitney Forum were to fall victim to budget cuts and close, no one with the province is going to shed a tear. Instead, city council will bear the blame. The school board will keep enjoying significant funding raises. And the cycle will repeat.
