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Superintendent Jason Young and Treasurer Shannon Bayes together present the division’s 2025-26 budget, offering an overview of the division before getting into the nitty gritty of the numbers.

This year, the percentage of the total budget covered by provincial funding has decreased slightly from 58.9 percent to 57.5 percent. The provincial contribution formula takes into consideration both school enrollment and property assessment values. The biggest change year-over-year is the significantly reduced municipal portion, from 34.2 percent to 23.2 percent, but this reflects a shift between municipal revenue and provincial tax credits, so there is an offsetting increase in the tax credit portion of the funding.

It is notable that for 2025-26, unlike the past several years, divisions can raise funding locally without predetermined percentages or limits.

The proposed budget is an increase of 6.7% over the current year, or just over 1.9 million dollars, as the division continues to grow. Staff costs remain by far the largest part of the operating budget, at 83.5% of the total, and almost 75% of that is entirely classroom teacher salaries.

As far as the impact on municipal taxes, it will result in a small decrease in the mill rate, of 2.35%. The impact on any individual bill will depend on the type of property owned and on the assessed property value.

This budget was passed on March 11 at a special meeting of the School Division Board and now goes to the province for approval by the end of the month.

The Beautiful Plains School Division covers an area of about 3,500 square kilometers and governs 14 schools, 7 community schools and 7 Hutterian schools, with over 2300 students and 300 regular staff members. Since 2012, the division has seen steady and rapid growth, mostly affecting the Neepawa schools but also seen in the other areas. It is one of the fastest-growing school divisions in the province.