The Flin Flon School Division’s latest draft budget was released Feb. 28, featuring more student resource and instruction spending and a higher mill rate to go with it.
The division is proposing a budget with the highest mill rate in the division’s history, jumping from just over 25 mills last year to almost 30 mills this year. The hike comes to cover a budget that sees around $1.27 million more spending forecasted in the coming year than in last year’s budget - $18,117,934 in total, or a 7.53 per cent increase. The budget still needs to be formally adopted by the board and approved by the province.
Most of the increases will go toward regular student instruction, where just over $778,000 more money will be devoted - bringing the division’s total funding for regular instruction up past $10 million - and for student supports like regular placement, special placement and resource services, where the division will spend about $387,000 more.
“The board believes we’ve incorporated what they can into the current budget, within the monetary constraints and realities that we’re facing at this time,” said FFSD secretary-treasurer Heather Fleming, who presented the budget at a public meeting Feb. 28.
Part of the reason for the hike is cuts to what have been the division’s traditional revenue sources. One of those sources, the grant-in-lieu given to Flin Flon groups by Hudbay, has seen cuts since the company closed most of its operations in 2022. The amount that is paid to the City of Flin Flon has gone down and is likely to go down more both this year and in coming years. A recent agreement between the City and the FFSD has guaranteed that a portion of that shrinking grant-in-lieu funding will get to the division, but a smaller amount by percentage than the division has received in the past.
On top of that comes a change in provincial education funding that has hurt the FFSD. The division has seen enrollment drop since the Hudbay closures in 2022, but provincial funding formulas were frozen in 2020 to pre-pandemic numbers to provide relief for school divisions going through volatile times. Those frozen formulas have thawed out and provincial funding will now be given on a per-capita basis, per enrolled student - and the FFSD’s enrollment is dropping.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the FFSD had over a thousand students. That number hovered in the high 900s until 2022, when enrollment went from 946 students to 875. The division’s enrollment now sits at 857 students as of last fall, representing almost a 20 per cent drop in students since 2008. Less students means less money from Winnipeg - and combined with less money from Hudbay, the division has needed to dive into taxpayers’ pockets to fill the gap. Other provincial funding through the formula guarantee paid to Manitoba public schools and equalization support has covered much of the shortfall, but not all of it.
“We’ve actually received less because they are using our actual enrollment numbers,” said Fleming.
To soften that blow, the division budget includes diving into the FFSD’s existing surplus to cover gaps. The budget features an estimated $293,147 deficit, which would be covered by the division’s surplus, taking it down to an estimation of about $387,000 at the end of this fiscal year.
This year’s budget includes $220,000 in additional spending requests, which came in from teachers, students and school staff. The money will go toward adding extra student supports by hiring more educational assistants (the equivalent of 4.5 full time positions) at a cost of $180,000, replacing some of the division’s network infrastructure at $20,000, putting $13,000 toward roof repairs and $7,000 for an extra day of professional development for school staff.
Those four projects were part of a package of requests made to the division - most of the requests could not be filled. More than half a million dollars’ worth of funding requests, including for classroom tech, student councils, bigger budgets for skills and engaged learning programs, a new playground at Ruth Betts Community School, new band room carpet and sinks at Ecole McIsaac School, new air conditioning and more could not be filled and were taken out of the budget.
“Those were not put into the budget due to monetary limits,” said Fleming.
“If the government doesn’t fund this, the only other place we can go is through the tax system. Our IT has to be fixed, our roofs have to be fixed, supports for students have to be there. There are definitely other things here that would be good to have, but there’s only so much money.”
The division held a round of budget consultations online before its release on its website and social media pages - only 19 people answered the survey, asking for a wide-ranging number of goals, some attainable like boosting nutrition programs (which has been mandated this year by the province) and mental health supports, with others including “more staff” or “function with less staff”. The division plans to cut 2.5 full-time staff positions this year due to constraints from the budget.
