SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Earlier this month, Yellowknife school districts announced there won't be a school levy hike in 2013 after all. After the Yk Education District No. 1 board meeting May 28, it appears likely there won't be an increase in 2014 either.
Simon Taylor, Catholic school board chair, says lack of mill rate increase could lead to financial trouble for board. - NNSL file photo
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Yk1 finance chair Terry Brookes announced a planned deficit of just under $200,000 for the 2013/2014 school year at the meeting. The board will draw funds from what Brookes described as a healthy accumulated surplus of $1.6 million, 5.3 per cent of the board's revenue and expenditures. That means Yk1 will not suffer losses to school programs or services without the mill rate increase next year, said Brookes.
The budget will support the continuation of optional programs at Yk1 schools, including fine arts and music, athletic excellence and industrial arts. The board also hopes to use the budget to revitalize the Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee of Parents.
"We're doing good and we're in great shape," said Brookes at the end of his presentation.
It was only two weeks ago that both Yk1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools were trumpeting the need to increase the education mill rate on property tax bills to 4.87 mills from 4.64. The adjustment would have meant an increase of $47 on property taxes for a home with an average assessed valued of $205,000.
The Catholic school district, at about $350,000, doesn't have a surplus as large as Yk1's which means, without an increase in funding from either the Department of Education, Culture and Employment or a school levy increase, the board might have to start cutting into school programs.
The 2013 year will be safe from cuts but Catholic school board chair Simon Taylor said he's concerned for the years after that.
He said the board will have to draw on its carried-over surplus for the upcoming school year -- what he calls an unsustainable solution.
"What we're saying to the public is in order to maintain the level of education the students need, our sustainable core funding needs to remain the same," said Taylor.
"If we have a class that requires an extra teaching assistant or there's an unanticipated number of students and we need a new teacher, we need those spare funds."
When asked if the Catholic board will call for a tax hike regardless of whether Yk1 wants one when the school boards plan their budgets again next spring, Taylor said it's hard to predict.
"What we'll be doing at that time is looking at what we need to do and how we can afford it," he said.
Taylor said the board is trying to deal with a problem in advance to it becoming a problem.
"What I'm concerned with is we'll reach a point where (the deficit) will start to bite into programs," he said.
The school boards have an unwritten agreement to only raise the mill rate together.
"It's unfair for one district to have higher mill rates than the other," said Taylor.
He said while there is no law that requires the school boards to determine mill rates together, neither board would proceed with an increase without the other under any circumstance.
Short said if Yk1's deficit remains the same as in 2013, they will not require a tax hike next year but will consider the needs of the Catholic school board as well as their own when it comes time to collaborate again next spring.
