BPSD budget will see increased reliance on farm taxes

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BPSD budget will see increased reliance on farm taxes

Details: Published on Friday, March 4, 2016

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

On Wednesday, Feb. 24, the Beautiful Plains School Division (BPSD) held its annual budget meeting in Neepawa. The division also held one on Feb. 29 in Carberry. At the public meetings, enrolment trends, capital plans and tax shifts were among the topics discussed.

It has been fairly evident over the past few years that the enrolment at BPSD has been steadily increasing, with most of the growth occurring in Neepawa’s elementary school (HMK) and high school (NACI). This has, and continues to make an impact on the school division’s budget. With more students, more resources and staff are required to meet their needs. Over the past three years, the division has hired 11 staff members, nine of which were classroom teachers. In the next school year, the division plans to hire eight more teachers to keep up with enrolment increases and the new provincial Kindergarten to Grade 3 class size initiative, which requires classes to have 20 or less students.

Another challenge that comes with more students is finding the space to accommodate them all. The division has had to build two portable classrooms at HMK and three at NACI so far. They are planning to add two more portables at HMK for the fall of 2016, so that the Grade 5 classes can stay there for at least one or two more years. They will also add another portable classroom at NACI for the new school year to accommodate another middle years class in order to keep class sizes down. There is also a plan in the works for a major addition to NACI on the middle years end (west end of the building) that would include eight additional classrooms, a gymnasium and several multipurpose rooms. Jason Young, BPSD superintendent, described the addition as a self-sustaining “middle years school that just happens to be attached to the high school.” The capital plan for this addition started in 2012 and as of now, they have a tentative layout drawn up.

Also brought up at the meeting was one of the possible solutions to the space problem that has been discussed for several years: transporting students to outlying schools. Community members have often brought up the fact that the enrolment numbers at Brookdale and Eden schools have been steadily decreasing and that there is space for more students than the schools currently have. They have suggested that the division sends excess students to these schools rather than add onto the Neepawa schools.

The division’s Board of Trustees has been discussing this option for a number of years. In December of 2013, the board decided that they would be prepared to offer transport from Neepawa to these outlying schools if needed. They would need to have at least 20 students going to one of those schools for a bus to take them. The bus would run from Neepawa directly to the other school, only picking up students directly on the highway route the bus would take. The reason this hasn’t been happening is that the families have the right to choose to which school they will send their children. The division board does not want to force parents to send their children to any particular school and most families choose to send their kids to Neepawa’s schools.

Young also touched on the division’s portable devices plan. One of the sections of the budget, once it’s broken down, is computers and technology. This year, the budget for technology will be decreased by 18.5 per cent. This is due to the division’s portable devices plan. They are currently on year three of their plan that is gradually moving the students’ technology use from desktop computers to portable devices, or tablets. They hope to be able to provide one tablet for every two students in the middle years classes, four tablets for every elementary class and have a number available for high school students who don’t have their own portable device. Currently, the division has about 220 devices and the coming year’s budget will include the purchase of 125 more. There will be another purchase of about that same amount in the 2017/18 year that will complete the plan. The move to portable technology has decreased the number of computers they will buy, from 120 in 2015/16 to only 45 in the 2016/17 school year.

Also mentioned at the meeting was the plan for a new daycare to be built on the NACI property. This daycare and the addition to the middle school portion of NACI are the two biggest capital plans that BPSD is working on. Young explained that the school division not only has to look at providing for its students, but also providing for the needs of the community. The community is in need of more daycare space, so the division is looking at having one built on its property.

These two capital plans are part of why the Fiscal and Capital portion of the budget will increase by about 30 per cent, from $520,000 to $670,400, which is the largest percentage increase in the 2016/17 budget. Gord Olmstead, BPSD’s secretary-treasurer, explained that a large part of that increase will be taken from the services portion, which includes utilities such as heating, hydro and internet. They plan to decrease that aspect of the budget by just under half a per cent to move some money to the capital plan to set aside money for the two developments.

In total, the budget will increase by 6.9 per cent in 2016/17, from about $18.6 million in 2015/16 to about $19.9 million. The majority of that increase will be due to hiring more staff. However, the provincial support revenues increasing, combined with the increase in local property tax revenue, make a total revenue increase of 6.9 per cent, balancing out the budget.

One of the major changes that taxpayers will see this year is the shift from residential to farm taxes. Olmstead explained that every two years, the province reassesses the value of property across Manitoba. The property then gets taxed by its new assessed value. This year, farm properties have increased in value significantly more than commercial and residential properties. The provincial average of farmland value has increased by 47 per cent, while commercial property has only increased 16.1 per cent and residential has seen an increase of 12 per cent on average. Overall, the property values in the province have increased by an average of 15.6 per cent.

The mill rate for BPSD, which is the amount of tax payable per dollar on the assessed value of a property, has decreased from 13.5 to 11.45. That would mean that in general, the amount of property tax paid to the school division should decrease. However, the valuation of farm properties in our division have increased more than the mill rate has decreased, which means that farmers will be paying more, while residential and commercial properties will be taxed less.

Assessments of residential and commercial properties in our division have increased by 15 and 10 per cent respectively, while farm assessment has increased by about 40 per cent. This means that a farm originally assessed at $200,000 will see an increase in annual BPSD taxes of $131.79, while residential property assessed for the same amount will have a decrease in tax of $29.55 and a commercial property would see a decrease of $117.12. So although commercial and residential property taxes will decrease because of the lower mill rate, farm taxes will increase more than the combined decrease of the other two. Olmstead said that although the change is very big, the shift that BPSD is seeing is not as drastic as some other divisions in the province.