Brandon School Division mulling tax increase, cuts to make up funding shortfall

The chair of the Brandon School Division says a funding increase from the provincial government will do little to cover the increasing costs of educating students in Manitoba's second largest city and trustees may have to make cuts or raise taxes to make up the difference.

BSD board chair Kevan Sumner said the school division will receive about 2.3 per cent more funding this year due to an increase in enrolment. Last year, the division received a 4.9 per cent boost.

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"To say we're disappointed is a bit of an understatement," Sumner told CBC News on Thursday.

The Manitoba government announced Wednesday a $13.1-million funding increase for public schools, a one per cent increase slightly less than the rate of inflation.

"It would keep up with enrolment but ignore factors like our collective agreements [which] are giving teachers a threeper centraise during the budget year," Sumner said. "We're going to have less funding per capita from the province at the end of the day next year."

Sumner said the division is expecting between 150 and 200 new students to enroll next year and has already put in a request for four new portable classrooms. But it isn't just teacher salaries that are going up in Brandon.

"Supply costs go up," Sumner said. "Everything from computers to toilet paper."

Sumner said the division hasn't yet heard if the province will continue funding teachers hired to keep class sizes small.

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He said 14 teachers are funded though the provincial program and would mean trustees would have to find an additional $1 million in the budget.

Education minister Ian Wishart told reporters on Wednesday that the funding is still under review because teachers have said there could be other ways of improving outcomes.

"We're certainly evaluating that," he said."Frankly some of the evaluations have suggested there might be better ways of doing this."

He said the division is still crunching the numbers and hopes to have a budget ready to present to the public on Feb. 13.