Tax hike funds dozens of new Seine River teachers and EAs

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This article was published 02/03/2025 (389 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The proposed $63.26-million Seine River School Division (SRSD) budget includes $11 million more in spending and hiring 62 more full-time positions.

Those positions include 27 teachers and professional staff, plus another 35 support staff like education assistants (EAs).

To fund the 17 percent increase in expenses, the school division is using a 5.7 percent increase in provincial funding, which includes hundreds of thousands dedicated to funding nutrition programs. SRSD is also keeping the mill rate flat at 12.67 as property assessment value has increased an average of 22.9 percent.

That means tax bills are going up for most property owners, despite most benefiting from a new provincial school tax credit of $1,500. It is a change in the previous rebate formula that will see higher valued properties paying more.

The average $350,000 home is estimated to go up in value to $420,000. Total school taxes would go up 20 percent to $2,395. But the tax credit would bring down what homeowners would actually pay to $895. That would be a 38 percent increase from last year’s $648 average after rebates.

“I think it really exemplifies where we’re at financially and that motivation from public to if we are going to be adding, these are the areas that we really need to be cognizant of.

“So increasing educational assistants in our classrooms to support the diverse needs of our students,” said superintendent Colin Campbell at Feb. 25’s online budget presentation.

He added that there was an increasing demand for specialized staff. A community survey showed a desire for occupational therapists, speech pathologists and learning support teachers.

“We want to be proactive, not so reactive to the needs in our classrooms,” said Campbell.

The new spending also proposes eliminating fees for mandatory band programs, purchasing band instruments, more money for school teams and specialized equipment, four new buses and two new bus routes.

There would also be more money for building improvements, professional development, and technology hardware.

School board trustee for Ward 2 (St. Adolphe, Iles des Chenes and Lorette) Marinus Van Osch was the only one of the nine trustees to say he would not be supporting the increased spending and higher taxes.

“The matching mill rate should have been reduced by 22 percent first and then we start calculating things,” said Van Osch.

The division is still in a deficit due to accounting errors discovered in 2023. SRSD reduced staffing, eliminated the Kids at Play (KAP) program, charged in-town busing fees, held off on buying new buses, decreased school and administration spending, put fees on band and other extra curriculars, and discontinued its iPad project that supplied students with the hardware to climb towards a balanced budget.

The public survey did want KAP back or full-day kindergarten. A number of schools have leased space to community daycare programs to fill the need for kindergarten care outside of class time.

SRSD plans to get out of deficit by next year’s budget.

“So basically, what we’re doing is we are buying our way out of a deficit and doing the catch up,” said Van Osch.

New treasurer Karastin Michalycia at the board meeting said depending on provincial funding and spending decisions, another tax increase of 11 percent could be coming next year.

Board Chair Wendy Bloomfield pointed out the tax increase will not affect everyone the same. It will depend on property assessments. She did add that she has not seen such a dramatic increase in assessments in her decades at the board table.

“Let’s face it, Seine River is a growing division. I think it’s the community of Ste Anne area that’s probably the fastest growing area in the province right now.

“So it’s very difficult to figure this out but we’re I guess reaping a windfall of new assessment and a reassessment year. And we’ve reaped it before, and we still raised taxes. One year… we decided to not raise taxes and a couple, three years later it came back to bite,” said Bloomfield.

Enrolment at the beginning of the 2024-25 school years was up to 4,878 students. There were 665 full-time staff this year at the 15 schools, three off-site campus programs and adult learning centre. Buses drove 62 routes.

Teachers share full classrooms

Those schools are full, especially in Ste Anne where a new vocational school was cancelled when the current NDP government came into power. Minister of Education and Early Childhood Learning is Tracy Schmidt hinted at a future announcement for Ste Anne after formerly cancelled school in Winnipeg were announced earlier this month, but the school division had not heard from her yet.

To keep student-teacher ratios in line with provincial regulations, teachers are sharing classrooms.

“We’ve already had conversations with school principals to try and minimize that, but yes it’s going to be tight in our schools,” replied Campbell to a question on co-teaching from Ward 3 (Ste. Anne, Richer and LaBroquerie) trustee Robert Rivard.

Van Osch also brought up the fact that the budget was discussed and debated in camera before the public meeting, feeling that should have been in a public forum so residents knew trustees’ thoughts.

Van Osch said that after Bloomfield asked for thoughts from other trustees and nobody responded. After Van Osch voiced his displeasure, Bloomfield said she would call on each trustee individually if they did not give thoughts and they voiced their support for the budget.

The budget will be up for final approval at the next public board meeting March 11.