Sask. school division navigating $4.2M deficit as it prepares to submit budget

School boards within Saskatchewan are getting ready to submit their own budgets to the province, but one southern division is already projecting a large deficit for 2022-23, saying the increase in education funding will not come close to covering additional costs.

Chinook School Division (CSD), located in southwest Saskatchewan, sent out a budget update on Thursday, stating it is projecting a $4.2 million deficit next year. The division’s said an increase of $563,000 in funding will not be enough to cover expected costs.

“This will not come close to offsetting the anticipated increase in inflationary cost in 2022-23 and will result in an ever increasing funding shortfall for the division,” CSD said in the update.

The update called developing the 2022-23 budget one of the Chinook Board of Education’s “greatest challenges." The division said $1.5 million in projected inflationary costs will force it to dip into its reserves.

“We need sufficient resources to pay our expenses and this is not a good long-term solution,” Chinook Board of Education board Kim Pridmore said in a news release.

“We have found further efficiencies over the years; however these have been eaten up by our rising inflationary costs, leaving our Board with limited options to make further reductions. Our reserves will run out very soon, so we will unfortunately need to make decisions that will affect every community in our division.”

"We’re at a place now where we have to get our staffing reduced,” Pridmore said.

School Boards used to have direct control of funding through property taxation. Now the province makes the decisions.

In Question Period Thursday, NDP MLA Matt Love said the lack of funding will put school divisions in the position where they will have no choice but to go through another round of deep cuts.

Love said the numbers they’ve seen from Chinook will be the first of many and has not heard a single positive response from the budget.

Love also read a quote from a school trustee member who he said he understands what a history of cuts means.

“This budget doesn’t go far enough to address the classroom complexity issues that our staff and students face,” he read. “I believe we are applying a band aid where surgery is required.”

“Our kids need more than band aids,” Love said.

Education Minister Dustin Duncan said the budget provides $1.99 billion in record level investments, provides for capital funding to advance the work the government is doing to build new schools and will establish 200 additional educational assistants.

Duncan said school divisions have had their specific numbers for about four days and they have about three months to determine their budgets and meet with the ministry before he signs off on them.

“There is a lot of time between now and then to look at their budgets, look at their numbers, look at their enrollments,” he said. “We’re expecting that Chinook is going to see a decrease in students so obviously that will have some impact in terms of the staffing levels that are going to be required.”

“It is what it is.”

Love said students deserve the support for a full pandemic recovery.

The Education Minister said the pandemic has stretched over three academic years and the most important thing for students was to actually be in the classroom.

“[The opposition] fought this government tooth and nail on initiatives that this government put in place to ensure that school boards could keep kids in front of teachers in the classroom,” he said.

Duncan said while there might need to be some adjustments school divisions need to make, more supports will contribute to the education sector.

“The Supports for Learning we’ve increased by $6 million … that is going towards paying for additional positions in schools, it will be psychologists, it would be other positions” he said.