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School boards vie for tax dollars Laura Busch Northern News Services Published Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Since 2006, Yellowknife Catholic Schools has gone from receiving more than 44 per cent of property taxes allocated to schools, to receiving 39.34 per cent of property taxes for the current school year. Property owners are asked to decide their school district support at the start of the year. The deadline to declare is Feb. 20. "Right now, we are in the middle of a period where people are allowed to switch their property taxes," said Mike Huvenaars, assistant superintendent of business for Yellowknife Catholic Schools. Taxpayers can choose what proportion of their taxes goes to which board, from one per cent to 100 per cent. For property owners who do not specify a preference, funds are allocated by the enrolment ratio between the boards. For example, for the 2011-2012 school year, more than 58 per cent of all Yellowknife students are attending public schools, while about 41 per cent are enrolled in Catholic schools. All non-specified residential tax dollars for 2012 would be split using that same ratio. The enrolment ratio used by the city is provided by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and does not necessarily match the school boards' enrolment records, said Huvenaars. When the city splits the property tax revenues, it discounts students who live outside city limits, including 20 students who live in Dettah and attend YCS schools. Funding for these 20 students flows from the government to Dettah and Dettah pays the school district. The two Yellowknife school boards rely heavily on revenue from property taxes, even though they are the only school jurisdictions in the NWT that collect this kind of income. While tax revenues have been steadily rising, the number of students has been slowly dropping. Some 3,203 students were enrolled in both school districts for 2011 - 266 fewer than in 2007. "As a school board in Yellowknife, because we're in a tax-based community and we're able to levy property taxes, the government decreases our funding based on the fact that we have the ability to generate an income from another source," said Huvenaars. "So, all of our programs couldn't run the way they do without property taxes." For the current school year, the Catholic district has a total projected revenue of $24,754,000. This includes property tax revenues of $3,616,000. The public district received about 18 per cent of its total revenues for the current school year from property taxes, said Tram Do, director of corporate services for Yk1. For 2011-12, the public school board estimates its total revenue at $30,666,404. Of this, $5,592,008 came from property taxes. "It accounts for approximately 20 per cent of our funding," said Metro Huculak, superintendent for Yk1. "It goes towards staffing, operation and maintenance - it goes towards everything that we do." The public school system has been receiving more funds through property tax in recent years, said Huculak, particularly from businesses. "People who either send their kids to the Catholic or the public system, they do business in all businesses, I think," said Huculak. "Some businesses choose to send their taxes one way or another and that's their choice and I respect their choice." Most Yellowknife businesses use the city-provided split, said Huvenaars. This is because they recognize that they have clients with children in both school systems. The most changes to the split in tax funding come from individual families, he said. "It's nice if they would support both, but if their kids are going to one system, I understand that," said Huculak. "We certainly appreciate the support that we've been given by the community for our programs."
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