With the merger of the Horizon and Englefeld Protestant Separate school divisions comes a loss of $70,000 worth of funding from the provincial government.
Kevin Garinger, Horizon鈥檚 director of education, said the loss comes down to the funding formula the province uses to determine what each school division receives.
鈥淲e鈥檒l continue to ensure we advocate for continued support in terms of funding to offset those types of things but we鈥檙e also recognizing that education of our children will continue and we鈥檒l do that with the current funding envelope that we鈥檝e been provided,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 think the board and the administrative staff here at Horizon work hard to make sure that $70,000 decrease is not felt by students in the classroom,鈥� said Linda Mattock, the division鈥檚 vice-chair.
The merger was official June 30, 2018.
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SSBA fee
The Saskatchewan School Boards Association is asking Horizon to pay $10,000 in connection with Englefeld Protestant Separate School Division鈥檚 membership fee.
Englefeld鈥檚 fee was around $20,000. It paid half of it to cover the half a year it existed before it merged with Horizon.
It decided to do this because the provincial government placed caps on governance spending that year, which have since been removed. Englefeld鈥檚 limit was $21,000 and there were expenses associated with the amalgamation.
Horizon is also arguing the association鈥檚 bylaws addresses a division that鈥檚 withdrawing, not one that ceases to exist.
鈥淭he bylaw, the way it鈥檚 written, would suggest that a school division would have to give almost two years notice to follow the bylaw to the letter,鈥� Mattock said. 鈥淚n this case 鈥� and I think in any case 鈥� we didn鈥檛 know two years ahead of time, Englefeld didn鈥檛 know two years ahead of time they were looking at amalgamation.鈥�
Shawn Davidson, the president of the association, told the Horizon board that they were open to negotiating a deal due to the circumstances.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not a matter of the dollars. We are very concerned about the precedent set by violating our bylaws.鈥�
