Christine Grimard
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - It's time for property owners to decide which school board they support.

March 8 is the deadline for school support declarations. As municipal property taxes make up a significant portion of school board funding, what goes on that form can have an impact on the size of the board's budget.

"It could put a severe stress on their budget," said Bob Madore, supervisor of property taxation for the City of Yellowknife.

The tax rate is by default divided between the school boards in line with registration: 57.9 per cent going to Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and 42.1 per cent going to Yellowknife Catholic Schools, said Debbie Euchner, Yellowknife's city clerk.

Households can decide which school board to support, or how to divide their contributions, directing where their money will end up. With tax rates configured to meet the budgets of the schools, an unbalanced endorsement for one board over the other could lead to problems in the school board's budget, according to Madore.

Even though their budget is largely determined by parental support, the Yellowknife Catholic School Board isn't pressuring parents to pledge support, according to Debra Kruger, office manager for Yellowknife Catholic Schools.

Aside from providing information and the forms to families, the school board does not follow up with parents.

"We don't canvass the parents per se. It's their choice. We don't feel that's the right way to go," she said. They do, however, call their staff to ask they pledge their support, she acknowledged.

Metro Huculak, Superintendent of Education for Yellowknife Education District No. 1, said that they also prefer to give out information rather than canvas parents for support.

They do, however, inform parents about how to pledge their support to the school board.

"A lot of families don't even check where their taxes go," noted Huculak.

Both school boards collect the forms from the parents. In collecting the forms, rather than having parents give the forms directly to the city, the school board is able to check whether the city is allocating the money as the parents indicate. Kruger noted that there have been some problems in the past where "quite a few" requests were not processed by the city, but that it's gotten better over the years.

Huculak also noted that he receives a copy of the tax roll to ensure that changes have been made. The deadline for submitting the tax forms to Yellowknife Education District No. 1 is March 1.