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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Representatives of Yellowknife's school boards say they are concerned about the financial impact from the city's decision to no longer hold trustee elections in conjunction with mayor and council elections.

In past years, Yellowknife Catholic Schools, and Yellowknife Education District No. 1 shared the costs of joint elections with the city. The Catholic school board held a meeting last week to discuss the fallout from the July 11 decision by city.

"It's a challenge for sure," said Gerda Hazenberg, YCS trustee. "There is a lot of work involved. In the past we paid the city to help cover the cost of the election for our portion of it. This time we are not sharing the cost, we're not sharing workers so it's going to cost quite a large sum more."

At this point both boards are unsure exactly how much the additional cost will be.

Yellowknifers will still be able to vote in the board of trustee election on the same date, Oct. 15, and at the same polling stations as the municipal election, all parties agreed.

The boards have decided to work together to hire a returning officer and 25 or more employees for the event. They are also in discussions with the city to find out if they will have to cover their own advertising costs.

Yk1 chair Allan Shortt said he too is concerned about what this latest decision from the city will mean.

"The sad part is that anything we spend comes right out of the classroom," said Shortt. "So any extra cost is hard on us. We don't get any more money from city taxes or from the government to do this."

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the city is willing to work with the school boards to make sure the election goes smoothly.

"At this point in time (the city and the boards) are supposed to be working together to finalize what's going to happen and we'll hear more as they work together," he said yesterday, adding he doesn't expect the new arrangement to have a significant financial impact on the school boards. "The amount they have been contributing to the elections in the past few years has been significant so it's just a matter of sitting down and figuring out what needs to be done and then seeing if there is any impact."

Van Tighem said the decision to have the boards hire their own returning officer was made to help ease the workload.

Past elections have been gruelling for the returning officer, who has to be on site while the ballots are being distributed and until the count is complete, he said.

"Based on the number and experience of the elections staff recruited, the last couple of elections have gone into the wee hours of the next morning," Van Tighem wrote in an e-mail.

Still, Shortt said no matter the reason, the timing of the decision has put the boards in a difficult place.

"We never got the final decision until all of our administrative staff had left for the summer so now we are scrambling to try and get it in place," Short said. "It's a huge concern."

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