Slight increase in school taxes for the average homeowner
With its 2025-2026 financial plan, Garden Valley School Division’s board of trustees attempted to find a balance between covering ever-rising expenses while not unduly increasing the financial load on local taxpayers.
“I think we found a good balance in making sure that our children, our children and staff, are still supported while balancing the fiscal responsibility and ensuring that our taxpayer didn’t bear too much of the burden,” board chair Leah Klassen said March 11 as the division unveiled its budget to the public ahead of passing it that same evening.
The $63 million financial plan is an increase of $3.73 million from the year before to support the learning needs of just over 4,200 students in 14 schools in the Winkler area.
The bulk of expenses is tied up in salaries and benefits, which, at $53M (representing a contracted 6.4 per cent increase in salaries and a 5.7 per cent increase in benefits/allowances) gobbles up 84 per cent of the budget.
Services comes in at $5M, a $560,000 or 12.4 per cent increase, followed by supplies/materials/minor equipment purchases at $3.4M, a one per cent decrease, and then transfers at $1.54M, a 4.5 per cent increase.
With salaries taking up such a vast amount of the funds each year, it leaves the division with very little wiggle room, unless they begin cutting staffing levels—something they’re loathe to do, Klassen observed.
“When a school division has to cut something, they don’t necessarily want to have to cut part of that 84 per cent of the pie, because that is what directly supports our students,” she said.
For years, the way GVSD has avoided those cuts has been by putting off non-critical maintenance projects. This year they’re looking to play catch-up a little bit, setting aside $373,000 to address the maintenance deficit so it won’t come as such a sticker shock in future years.
“We have a huge maintenance deficit across this division,” noted secretary-treasurer Kevin Vovchuk. “Some of which will be possibly covered by the provincial government, but a lot of it probably will be on our taxpayers.”
This includes a range of projects—sewer upgrades, aging gym floors that are still functional/safe but most definitely nearing the end of their life cycles.
“We have the philosophy of if it breaks we’re going to fix it, but we’d like to get past the ‘waiting for it to break’ part,” Vovchuk said. “It’s one of those things that unless you make a conscious decision to put the money aside, it’s probably never going to get to the top of the list.”
Some of the other additional expenditures for the year ahead include a desperately needed new bus ($260,000), four new staff positions ($365,000 for two classroom teachers, one occupational therapist, and a human resources associate to bring the division’s HR department—which oversees over 700 staff—to two people), and funding for the home school liaison positions ($110,000).
The occupational therapist position is one GVSD is pleased to be able to fund in order to support the increasing needs of students, superintendent Dan Ward said.
“Last year we brought in an occupational therapist under the umbrella of the school division,” he said, explaining they previously contracted that role out to the regional health authority. An in-house staff member “gives us more flexibility … having our own clinical staff does really help us address issues.”
The division has seen an increasing number of children with developmental delays post-pandemic, and the occupational therapist can help them learn to regulate their behaviour and overcome challenges, Ward shared.
“This has addressed a huge need in our school division,” he said.
The budget also projects a surplus of about $900,000, which GVSD will hold in reserve in preparation for the teacher salary harmonization coming into play in the near future.
Previously, school divisions negotiated salaries with local teacher associations themselves, but now the province has taken control of that process to standardize salaries throughout Manitoba. GVSD’s salaries are currently slightly less than they will be once the provincial salary rates come into effect, so that will be a major expense increase in the years ahead.
On the other side of the equation, the vast bulk of GVSD’s revenue sources—60 per cent—comes from the provincial government, with the remaining 38 per cent coming from municipal taxes, and two per cent from lesser sources.
Funding increases from the province this year varied greatly between school divisions, ranging from just one per cent all the way up to nearly 10 per cent. GVSD’s 1.9 per cent increase is just $729,000 more than the current school year, bringing the total provincial dollars to just over $38.68 million.
Local school taxes will bring in another $24.37 million, an increase of $3.45 million from the year before.
As a result, ratepayers in Garden Valley School Division will see their school taxes go up slightly.
The board is raising the mill rate from the 12.06 mills it is currently to 12.18 mills.
What that means is that for a house valued at $350,000 in 2024 and valued at about $393,000 in 2025, school taxes will increase from $1,899 to $2,154. But after the provincial school tax rebates and other credits, this homeowner would find themselves paying about $654 in net school taxes—an increase of $54 compared to last year.
Meanwhile, farmland valued at $2M last year and closer to $2.28M this year will pay, after the various credits and rebates, about $487 more in school taxes compared to 2024.
The budget planning process is always a long and difficult one, and Klassen thanks the community for its input over the past several months.
“We thank the public for their support and trusting their children into the care of Garden Valley School Division,” she said. “We are always grateful for that.”
