'Pay Peter and take away from Paul'
School districts still in the dark about proposed new education department funding formula
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Friday, January 15, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Although both the city's main school districts employ information technology (IT) staff to keep the students' tech-tools working smoothly, funding for the positions will be earmarked for the first time next year, according to one school administrator.
Janet Toner - assistant superintendent for Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) - said staff from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE) are putting finishing touches on a new funding formula that will change the way cash is divided up by territorial school districts.
Currently, the school districts are responsible for divvying up funding for items like tech staff.
"They've never segregated that in their funding before," said Toner.
She's only seen a quick slide show on how the new formula is going to work and she hasn't seen anything on paper yet, she said.
"My understanding is (the earmarking of funds equates to) one new tech person per school board across the NWT," she said.
Metro Huculak - superintendent for Yellowknife Education District No. 1 - said he isn't aware of funding for a new IT position but that if such a position is identified in the new formula money, it is sure to come from another part of the school board allocations.
"There's no new money," he said. "They're going to pay Peter and take away from Paul, is basically what I've heard."
He said the superintendents have been lobbying for funding for tech support for a long time, and Yk1 employs three IT support staff at the moment.
"We've been lobbying for that for the last 10 years. But we wanted new money," said Huculak, adding district staff have yet to meet with ECE to find out how they'll be funded next year.
"As far as we know there's no new money coming in. We have to wait to meet with the new minister and staff to find out how the funding is going to roll out for next year."
Jacqueline McKinnon - spokesperson for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment - stated in an e-mail the department is contemplating a number of changes to how schools are funded to deliver programming.
"These proposed changes will be decided upon during the upcoming budget development process by the 18th Legislative Assembly," she wrote.
