Regina Public Schools warning about potential cuts to shore up budget

Regina Public Schools is joining the chorus of voices frustrated with the provincial budget.

In a letter to staff, director of education Darren Boldt said the division needed a $7.5-million increase to keep the status quo in the coming year. Instead, he said it got $2.5 million to cover things such as enrolment growth, salary increases, benefit increases, utilities and inflation.

“We are managing within a particularly difficult and disappointing provincial budget,” Boldt wrote.

The provincial budget had a $49.4-million increase year over year for school division operations. However, the letter said $20 million of that was approved in July last year to deal with inflationary increases and $15.5 million was provided in December for enrolment increases up to Sept. 30 of last year.

The remaining amount that makes up the new money in this budget for the coming year is $13.9 million to deal with enrolment increases across the province. The letter said the division has seen an increase of more than 600 students since Sept. 30, 90 per cent of whom are at only seven schools.

Because of that, the director wrote that the board is looking at potential measures in its budget for the next school year, including implementing fees for lunch hour supervision, reducing spending on technology and learning resources, minimizing transportation costs, and reducing office and instructional jobs through attrition.

“While this is not the budget we want for Regina Public Schools, I know that staff across our system will remain united and committed to the best interests of the students we serve,” write Boldt.

In response, Education Minister Dustin Duncan said he thought it was a little early to be speculating on service cuts. He pointed out that, earlier this week, he and Premier Scott Moe announced the government would be looking at putting more money into education to help with enrolment increases.

“We’re going to be working very hard over the coming weeks to determine what that amount will be and when, so there are additional dollars coming,” said Duncan.

He hopes divisions would have an idea of the amount by the end of June so divisions can make offers to teachers in the summer and think about things like class sizes.

Duncan said there may be things not taken into account by school divisions, like the government having committed to funding any increases in the new teachers’ contract for the fall that hasn’t been negotiated yet.

He said he’s waiting on recommendations from a class size and composition committee by the end of this month.

“We’ll look to see what that means in terms of does it require an additional ask for money from Treasury Board?” said Duncan.

The minister also talked about savings he believes divisions will realize with the new Distance Learning Corporation taking on online learning. He said the money divisions had been spending on online learning will be freed up, and while they’ll have to pay $500 per student per online course they take, Duncan believes that will still have the divisions coming out with more money.

He said the ministry has been working with divisions to make sure they understand that.

Divisions normally have to have their budgets in to the ministry by the end of June, but Duncan said there could be more time given this year.

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck said the letter from Regina Public Schools was unfortunate but exactly what she had expected with the provincial budget this year.

“I trust the numbers that the school boards (and) that the teachers are bringing forward. This was an inadequate budget for education that is going to inflict more cuts on our kids’ classrooms and this has been a pattern over a decade with this government,” said Beck.