Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter

Administrators at the New Frontiers School Board are breathing easier, following a provincial government decision in mid-July to invest an additional $540 million into the education budget.

The NFSB is expecting to receive just under $2 million in additional funding through newly announced measures that directly impact student services, which will help tremendously to balance the budget. Finalized government budget rules still require the board to find savings, but the NFSB’s director general, Mike Helm, said these cuts will be much less dramatic.

“For us, it is now a small reduction overall in the system,” Helm explains, saying the board now expects to come up with a balanced budget. “We are in a position where we should be able to move forward and provide the services that we need to provide,” he confirmed.

Education Minister Bernard Drainville stated that the funds allocated as part of the new measures must be used to provide direct services to students, and that to be eligible, each service centre or board will have to demonstrate that efforts have been made to reduce administrative expenses.

The government continues to insist that school boards and service centres post a balanced budget without tapping into any accumulated surplus. The NFSB Council of Commissioners chair, John Ryan, acknowledges that while the administration is still crunching numbers, it looks encouraging.

In a message sent to all NFSB families, Ryan thanked all those who wrote letters, signed petitions, shared the school boards story, and contacted local MNAs when the news broke about potentially devastating budget reductions earlier this summer.

Ryan maintains that if the earlier budgetary rules and parameters had remained in place without this new injection of funds, the NFSB would have been in a very difficult position. Instead, he pointed out, the government listened to both the public outcry and local MNAs, who were aware of the realities on the ground after having met with NFSB representatives.

“We have made an impact,” he says.