The years-long wait for Manitoba’s new public school funding formula is almost over.
The Education Department has confirmed changes to the existing model — which is more than 30 years old — will go into effect for the 2025-26 academic year.
“A new formula won’t make the pie bigger, but there’s countless opportunities for making (funding) more easily understood, more streamlined and more responsive,” said Alan Campbell, president of the Canadian School Boards Association.
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“A new formula won’t make the pie bigger, but there’s countless opportunities for making (funding) more easily understood, more streamlined and more responsive,” said Alan Campbell, president of the Canadian School Boards Association.
Superintendents and school trustees have repeatedly raised concerns about inequity in the funding model introduced in 2002-03, and a companion equalization method that they say perpetuates inequities.
Many have called for multi-year funding instead of waiting for a yearly announcement in late January.
Campbell, a longtime trustee in the Interlake, was among the initial review team created three years ago. At the time, the father from Stonewall oversaw the Manitoba School Boards Association.
While noting the recent switch in government, he said a modernized equation has been “a long time in the making.” Stakeholders are cautiously optimistic about what to expect, Campbell added.
Former premier Brian Pallister’s government first announced a planned overhaul in November 2021 and set a goal of introducing an update that would “simplify funding,” “better support specialized learning needs” and “create predictability” ahead of 2023-24.
One year later, in the leadup to an election year, then-education minister Wayne Ewasko, now the interim leader of the opposition Tories, postponed the project indefinitely.
While the NDP did pledge to follow through with the initiative, it has been in limbo throughout the first year of the Kinew government.
Enrolment figures, transportation needs and building costs, among numerous line items, dictate how much money each of Manitoba’s 38 school divisions get.
Boards also rely on local property education taxes — amounts that vary among regions because they reflect the assessed value of area housing and businesses — and fundraising efforts to provide basic instruction and programming.
In order to tie boards over during the transition period, Manitoba Education has tweaked the model slightly in recent years and redistributed funds from wealthier districts to poorer ones that have fewer big businesses within their borders.
Given the complexity of the formula, the government’s current financial situation and all of the politics involved, Maples-area school trustee Greg MacFarlane said the “buzz” is that the changes won’t be as significant as initially anticipated.
“I hope I’m wrong; I’d like to be wrong,” said MacFarlane, a father in northwest Winnipeg.
Lord Selkirk School Division Supt. Jerret Long said he’s hoping for “a smattering” of updates, including more dollars to support students with disabilities and maintain or expand school nutrition.
“For us, it has been a gamechanger,” Long said about his division’s new programming under the NDP’s “universally accessible” school food program.
Its two designated community elementary sites, Ruth Hooker School and Robert Smith School, have been providing daily lunches to more than 400 students combined this fall.
“Funding should match aging infrastructure. We have some old, old, old buildings, so what’s the plan to address some of those (challenges)? That’s something we’d love to see in the funding formula,” Long said, adding that costly capital projects go beyond the scope of what can be covered through local taxation.
Historically, dollars earmarked for operating expenses and infrastructure needs have been separate.
A spokesperson for the office of Tracy Schmidt, acting education minister, said details about the new model are being finalized, so there was no update to provide Thursday.
PC education critic Grant Jackson said his party wants to see “fairness in funding,” especially for rural school divisions with smaller populations than urban ones and greater school bus needs.
“Just because you’ve got less kids in a school division or your school division isn’t growing quickly in terms of population doesn’t mean that the buses can be any less safe, that the fuel costs any less dollars,” said the MLA for Spruce Woods.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she joined the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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