While St. James – Assiniboia School Division (SJASD) residents have been looking forward to spring, your School Board Trustees have been hard at work setting the 2021/22 Budget.
This budget builds upon the strong, fiscally responsible foundation that the SJASD is known for. The operating expenditure budget for the 2021/22 school year will be $112M, which is a 1.8% increase year-over-year. Our school division continues to achieve a low operating expenditure increase. In fact, increases for the last three years have been the lowest in Metro Winnipeg (0.45% in 2018/19; 0.66% in 2019/20; and 0.75% in our current year of 2020/21).
82% of the budgets’ overall expenses are spent on school-based student support. If you include school building maintenance and expenses of 10%, the school division spends 92% of its overall budget on or in the classroom.
Our division is reprioritizing financial resources in response to what we feel is needed to continue to move our community forward. We are committed to ensuring that the voice of our community is represented in our leadership team.
The positions of Administrator of Indigenous Academic and Community Programs and Administrator of Diversity and Equity will assist us as a division to ensure the lens of our entire community is involved in decision-making and planning.
The Community Connector is a position that will help build trust with our families and ensure our programming represents the academic, social, and emotional needs of our families that may feel they do not have a voice.
And finally, the SJASD bike program is a new partnership with Manitoba Public Insurance. It is designed to provide early and middle school students across the division with bike safety and training.
Ensuring tax dollars are spent wisely is very important to the Board of Trustees. That is why we are excited to announce that the average St. James - Assiniboia homeowner will see their taxes go down by 0.32% or $5.35 this year. We were able to do this while maintaining all division programs and services while maintaining the high level of education St. James – Assiniboia School Division is known for.
I would once again like to thank our amazing Senior Administrative team, who worked so hard and diligently on this budget.
-Message from Craig Glennie, St. James-Assiniboia School Division Trustee and Finance & Facilities Committee Chair
