Fuel and insurance: School divisions getting $20M more to deal with inflation

Saskatchewan’s 27 school divisions are adding a total of $20 million to their coffers.

The provincial government announced Thursday it was making a one-time investment of $20 million for the 2022-23 school year to help the divisions with rising fuel and insurance costs.

“Now that all the budgets have been submitted, we certainly have a better understanding of what some of the inflationary pressures around transportation (are) — particularly because of persistent high fuel prices that we’re seeing through the spring and now into the summer — as well as other inflationary pressures like insurance premiums that have been going up across the school divisions,” Education Minister Dustin Duncan said during a media conference.

Based on what divisions spent last year and working out the average cost this year, about $15 million of the $20 million is being earmarked for transportation and the other $5 million for the insurance premiums.

As recently as a month ago, Duncan and Premier Scott Moe were unwilling to provide more money to school divisions as their boards talking about having to make difficult decisions in their budgets. Duncan said now, the province has all the division budgets.

“We have a better understanding of where it looks to be we are as a province now and this still does give time, in the event that school divisions are going to be using the funding to hire, it still does give them some time to go through that process and hopefully have those additional positions in place,” said Duncan.

The minister also pointed out the province is in a different budgetary position than it was in the spring, with a potential $450-million deficit in the books. Duncan said the increase in resource revenue is why the province is making this move.

“I think it’s fair to say that the higher resources that we’re seeing, and likely look to be longer over the next couple of months, does put us in a position where we can provide the additional $20 million,” said Duncan.

When discussing budgets, Duncan said he’d heard concerns from divisions about having to increase class sizes or, in some cases, add more grades to a classroom.

The money is only meant to help with inflation pressures; Duncan said it won’t address all the problems school divisions are seeing.

“School divisions have to make decisions with finite dollars that they do have, whether it’s this year, whether it’s next year or previous years,” he said.

When talking about the difficulties in making their budgets, some school divisions said they would have to cut staff. Duncan said many of those positions were funded by COVID relief money and weren’t meant to be permanent positions anyway.

However, since divisions have already made their budgets with the inflation costs accounted for, Duncan said he expects this extra money will be used in many cases to rehire some of the positions that divisions cut.

Saskatoon Public Schools is getting the most funding, at $1,579,400. The smallest outlay is to the Ile a la Crosse School Division, which is receiving $64,900.

The 2022-23 budget included $1.99 billion in school operating funding for the 2022-23 school year. The government said the funding announced Thursday pushed the total investment over $2 billion for the first time in the province’s history.