Last week the Manitoba government announced an increase to public school division funding by $20.8 million.
Mountain View School Division Secretary-Treasurer Bart Michaleski says they’ll be receiving $370,000 from that increase.
“We’ll be working on our draft budget to see how that fits together with all of our other revenue sources. At the end of the day, you know, it never seems to be enough in terms of trying to meet the needs and demands.”
Michaleski says the $370,000 will address a number of areas.
“One of the areas we’re looking at some additional costs this year is in special needs or student services and that’s an area where additional funding was provided. The government committed to some additional dollars for special needs funding and almost a third of our increase in provincial revenue is in that area so it’ll certainly be directed to those expenditures. They provided some additional dollars in our base support and base support is dollars that are allocated essentially based on enrollment.”
Also included in the announcement Friday was the freezing of education property taxes and the implementation of the Property Tax Offset Grant.
The grant will give school divisions the equivalent of a 2% property tax increase, which will give MVSD $380,000.
With the money the division is receiving from the other part of the announcement, it totals $750,000.
The full impact the funding will have on the budget is unknown right now as the division continues to work on the budget.
Michaleski says they’ll consult with the communities about the budget, for the final decisions and to find out where the communities stand on the division’s priorities.
