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.
Manitoba Education Minister Peter Bjornson is sure good with numbers. So good, in fact, that he has the astonishing ability to calculate the exact amount of extra cash that will allow the Flin Flon School Board to hold the line on taxes. Yes sir, the minister is so intimately familiar with the challenges of our school division that he knows that $189,793 is the magic number to permit the trustees to cover rising costs without going to the taxpayer for one more penny. Even more impressive, he came up with the figure before our trustees have completed their budgeting process. Wow! HeÕs not only a great mathematician, heÕs a psychic! Sound a little far fetched? Not according to a January 29 news release from the Manitoba government. It proudly announced the creation of a new $16-million provincewide incentive fund Òthat will enable school divisions not to increase property taxes.Ó Our division will draw just under $190,000 from that fund provided its portion of the local tax bill stays flat. Now, itÕs certainly not a bad idea to try such a ÔcarrotÕ approach. Anything that might keep taxes down while ensuring quality services is welcome, though in the end this merely amounts to one pot of our money being displaced by another. WhatÕs unfortunate, and what people will overlook, is that Mr. Bjornson has put our trustees, along with their colleagues across the province, in a most unenviable position. He has boldly told us that all trustees are now enabled to stave off a tax hike. He has cast them as villains with no excuses left to seek additional money, whether they honestly need it or not. In the process, Mr. Bjornson has overlooked a crucial question: Will divisions have access to these extra dollars next year? Or is this a one-shot deal? No one knows. Without an answer to that question, boards face a dreadful scenario in which they keep taxes stable this year only to lose the incentive money next year. Suddenly theyÕd be in a far deeper financial hole and in need of an even larger tax boost. Mr. Bjornson also glosses over the fact that the province is forcing a costly new expenditure on divisions by mandating physical education in grades 11 and 12. True, the government will shovel out $2.1 million to ÒsupportÓ the implementation of these credits, but school boards across the province will reportedly need at least $5 million Ð and then some. None of this is to say our trustees shouldnÕt be working diligently to hold the line on taxes. As the Flin Flon School Division continues to lose students, our trustees Ð and by extension we as a community Ð will continue to face difficult decisions. The last thing the trustees need at this challenging time is the Minister of Education, as one critic put it, Òpoking them in the eye with a sharp stick.Ó Local Angle runs Fridays.
