Fort Smith (Feb 17/03) - Three smaller communities have gained new positions through funding redistribution in the South Slave Divisional Education Council's 2003-2004 budget.

The Lutsel K'e District Education Authority (DEA) and school will get a full-time secretary/treasurer at a cost of $32,000.

Fort Resolution, Lutsel K'e and the Hay River Reserve will get full-time program support teachers at a cost of $133,000.

And, $25,000 will be allocated to Fort Resolution and Lutsel K'e for full-time student counsellors.

The new positions were approved at a Feb. 8 SSDEC meeting in Fort Smith.

The redistribution for the new positions equals less than one per cent of the budget, says SSDEC superintendent Curtis Brown.

Representatives of the Hay River and Fort Smith DEAs voted against the positions for the smaller communities.

"It's not that I don't want to see money going there. The bigger communities have problems, just like the smaller communities," says Andrew Butler, the chair of the Hay River DEA.

Butler says the situation gets back to the basic point that two communities with 85 per cent of the students are outvoted by three communities with 15 per cent.

The funding for the new positions will take about $80,000 from the approximately $8 million budget for the Hay River DEA.

Butler declined to speculate on what that might mean for Hay River schools.

Other redistributions totalling $920,0000 -- in areas such as employee salary adjustments, staff development and community visits -- will be shared among the five SSDEC communities. The largest shares will go to Hay River and Fort Smith.

"The redistribution is skimmed off all formula funding line items, meaning that all communities and the regional office contribute by the same percentage," says Brown. "We don't anticipate any cut in service at any school within the region."

All adjustments equal six per cent of SSDEC's $19.2-million budget.