Shawn Bailey
Ron Brook Memorial Award
The Dauphin Agricultural Society (DAS) visited its own history in presenting the annual Ron Brook Memorial Award at its Farm Outlook 2024, Mar 14. For 40 years DAS has been presenting continuing education opportunities for producers, first through the Challenges of Production seminar and in recent years, through the Farm Outlook programming.
To mark that milestone this year’s award was presented to the organizing committee of the first seminar. That first committee consisted of DAS members Rod Fisher, George Richardson, Bev Prestayko, Brian Damsgaard and Reg Tarrant, who worked in conjunction with Lyle McNichol and Peter Kiez from Manitoba Agriculture and with the help of the local Bank of Nova Scotia branch. In presenting the award, Farm Outlook co-chair Jim Kaleta said in the early days Dauphin hosted one of the very few farm seminars in the province and the program took place over two days, drawing hundreds of producers from the Parkland and beyond to learn from a full slate of agricultural industry professionals. Banquets were regularly standing room only and always offered important keynote speakers - in one instance the federal Minister of Agriculture Eugene Whelan.
The Ron Brook Memorial Award was established in 1990 to honour the long-time DAS director who died during a fair in the late 1980s. It is presented annually to a deserving individual or organization which provides notable contributions to DAS and the agriculture industry. As an added bonus this year, on behalf of award recipients, DAS will offer a one-time only $2,000 scholarship to a student entering a post-secondary agriculture related program.
Pictured above are Reg Tarrant, George Richardson, DAS president Teren Stykalo, Rod Fisher, Farm Outlook co-chair Jim Kaleta and Brian Damsgaard.
MVSD presents draft budget at public forum
Ratepayers living within the boundaries of Mountain View School Division (MVSD) are preparing for an increase in the education portion of their property taxes.
At the division’s 2024-25 Public Budget Forum, Mar. 7, secretary-treasurer Lori Slepicka indicated the mill rate for the special levy will rise to 13.87 in the coming school year, an increase of one mill from the previous year.
While the effect the increase will have on individual ratepayers will depend on changes in assessment of their property over the past year, it will mean and additional $45.02 per $100,000 value on residential property, $26.01 on farm land and $65.03 on commercial property. The effect on farm property and residential properties will be mitigated by provincial rebates.
“The province is still promising a rebate of 50 per cent for residential and farmland, so that would be an increase of $13 for residential. On farmland the effect would be about $22.51 after the rebate,” Slepicka said.
The increase will raise an additional $2.98 million dollars for the 2024-25 budget, Slepicka said.
The additional funds will be used to increase educational assistant hours, while maintaining all other staffing levels, support informational technology infrastructure upgrades, increase the budgets for maintenance supplies and services and cover anticipated contractual obligations for both educators and non instructional staff.
“The contractual obligations are difficult to predict right now. Teachers’ bargaining is being done at a provincial level, so we have no idea what those salaries are going to come in at and the contract has been expired for a couple years already. And then our non-teaching union is also expired, so we don’t know exactly what that’s going to be for next year either,” Slepicka said. “So we’re putting what we think is a fair and reasonable amount into the budget to be fiscally responsible so that we have money to cover the salaries when we get the settlements of the contracts.”
The hope is the province will come through with extra funding to cover the added costs of the contract it negotiates with teachers, but even if it does not, the division will have to raise all the funds required for retroactive pay this year, she added.
“Our hope is that we won’t be, but (the province) are not yet indicating that they will cover those expenses,” Slepicka said, adding some provisions have been made in past years to help mitigate the effects of the new contracts. “We budget a little bit each year, so we just keep adding to it as we go along.”
Overall, MVSD’s balanced budget proposal calls for $50,816,934 each of revenue and income, up 8.1 per cent for last year.
On the revenue side, provincial grants are budgetted at $30,093,626, while municipalities will be on the hook for $18,449,048. First Nations revenue has been budgetted at $1,023,225, income from private organizations at $532,900, school division revenue at $478,420, federal revenue at $19,715 and income from other sources at $220,000.
At 57.08 per cent, the majority of expenditures come in the area of regular instruction, with student support services accounting for an additional 14.36 per cent. Maintenance comes in as the next highest budget line at 12.19 per cent of total expenditures followed by transportation at 7.12 per cent, instructional support at 3.65 per cent and administration at 3.11 per cent. Fiscal services at 1.76 per cent and community education at .23 per cent round out expenditure categories.
A vast majority of spending - 83.3 per cent - takes place to cover salaries and benefits, while the remaining 16.7 per cent is earmarked for services, materials and supplies.
“We spend slightly less than the average on personnel costs. We have more schools, smaller schools and our insurance costs and utility costs are slightly higher,” Slepicka said, adding a contributing factor is the fact that almost half of MVSD students require transportation.
In fact the division ranks the sixth highest total annual kilometers driven in the province, while sitting 20th out of 36 divisions in terms of enrolment.
“We have more buses, more mileage, which puts our supplies budgets up higher.”
When it comes to money spent in the classroom, there are two main areas of focus, MVSD superintendent and CEO Stephen Jaddock said.
In the area of student learning - which involves numeracy, literacy and credit attainment - protecting front line services by maintaining teacher ratios is the main focus for 2024-25, he said, along with adding education assistant hours.
“We are looking at a little bit of a pressure point on our educational assistance and this will bring us up to where we’re actually more in line with what we’re actually paying out for our educational assistance throughout the school year,” he said. “So we needed to do a little bit of a correction there. When we have students that come to our schools from other school divisions or they’re just new to the system and they require additional support then we do need to put in often times educational assistants to help with them, so we are wanting to make sure that our funding includes an increase for those hours.”
Other strategic initiatives include updating technology requirements, support for classroom supplies, instructional coaches, supporting industrial arts, human ecology and technical vocational instruction for Grades 7 to 12, reading recovery and alternative education, a high school apprenticeship facilitator and targeted professional development.
In the area of student well-being, strategic goals include safe and caring schools, student voice, indigenous education, and mental health and wellness.
The top budget focus for 2024-25 is proactive programming, Jaddock said.
“We want to make sure that our schools are continuing to participate in proactive programming. We do have an overall goal in Mountain View School Division to see a reduction in out-of-school suspensions, where we would like to make sure that students are in school and that we move to more of a restitution type model,” he said. “I mean there are situations where, for safety sake, we do need to have a not-in-school suspension, but we certainly want to reduce them overall, so that students can remain in school and have that contact time with the individual classroom teacher.”
With the provincial announcement around school nutrition, programming in that area is also a priority.
“To augment what is already happening in our schools, we have approximately an additional $275,000 to spend in that area,” he said. “The Province has stated that their goal is that no student should come to school hungry, and if they do, that they are being able to be looked at, looked after for breakfast and lunch. So that is the goal of the program in all of our 16 schools in Mountain View School Division.”
Budget attention was also given to the MVSD Student Voice Committee, resource and guidance, indigenous education framework, community connectors, social workers, staff wellness and mental health first aid.
“Coming through the COVID pandemic we find ourselves in what we call the echo pandemic, where the effects of the pandemic are now being felt and actually now coming out in the behaviors of students. Staff are on the front lines to have to deal with that. Also it’s no secret that many of the adults in our society have been affected by the pandemic, as well, and they need to remain healthy and they need to have support,” Jaddock said.
“So we want to make sure that we’re attending to that in Mountain View School Division.”
MVSD has until Mar. 15 to set its special levy and an adopted budget must be submitted to the province by Mar. 31.
Night moves
Dauphin residents went to bed Thursday night knowing the remnants of three plowings in the past week and a half sat piled in the middle of Main Street and downtown corridors impeding traffic flow.
But when they woke up Friday morning, those menacing windrows had disappeared thanks to the overnight efforts of Dauphin’s Public Works crews. Even with the ridiculous amount of snowfall the community has received over the last few days, Dauphin operators - public and private - have shown themselves to be unrivalled in the level of service they provide.
Dauphin motorists are travelling about the community freely, while those in other communities continue to struggle in their trip towards spring.
A little deja vu for Dauphin FD
There is something to be said for consistency. And consistent is how Dauphin fire chief Cam Abrey described the past year for his department in a rundown of 2023 operations for city councillors at their regular meeting, Feb. 26.
In fact things were so consistent that, at 236, the department responded to the same number of calls in 2023 as it did in 2022.
“Which, we believe, is the first time that’s ever happened in the history of the department, that it’s been consecutive numbers from year to year,” Abrey said, adding the two years boast the highest number of calls when looking back over the last decade.
False alarm calls continue to be the largest category by volume at 38 per cent of all calls. In 2023, the number rose to 89 over the 75 false alarms in 2022.
Abrey said 47 properties were issued a first offence notice under provisions of a City bylaw, with 14 receiving a second notice and eight receiving penalties for a third offence.
“That’s where the penalties start to kick in. Then the fines are issued by the City of Dauphin to the property owner,” he said, adding seven property owners received a penalty notice for a fourth offence, four got a fifth notice and one received a sixth penalty notice.
Motor vehicle collisions are the second highest category by volume with 41 responses accounting for 17 per cent of all calls.
Of those 41, 26 of the calls were eligible for claims under Manitoba Public Insurance guidelines, Abrey said and totalled $32,107.21.
“Now we just wait and see how much they actually pay back because sometimes they pay the full claim, sometimes they dispute the full claim, sometimes they reject the claim altogether,” Abrey said, adding determining factors include whether a driver is properly insured or whether they decide not to open a claim with MPI. “In that case, when there’s no claim filed, we don’t get paid either.”
In other categories, kitchen fires accounted for 11 per cent of department activity. Outdoor fires and structure fires each came in at eight per cent, carbon monoxide alarms at four per cent and vehicle fires at three per cent.
Abrey added the department changed its record keeping by pulling EMS lift assists - which involves helping to move larger patients - out of the catchall category of “other.”
“Our city manager Sharla (Griffiths) had emailed prior to the AMM conference and asked is this an issue in Dauphin? At that time I said, ‘no it’s not’ and then all of a sudden our calls exploded for lift assist following that email,” Abrey said, adding there were 16 such calls in 2023 and just 13 total from 2020 to 2022. “Those 16 totaled 251 personnel hours, or an average of 15.5 people responding to the station every time we’re paged out. Now the issue is that when EMS request assistance they ask for four members to show up, but they’re paging out every single member of the department.”
Abrey said there is getting to be more and more such calls across the province as emergency services agencies of all kinds, including EMS, are short staffed.
“That assistance is a service to our ratepayers,” he said, adding the Manitoba Association of Fire Chiefs and the Office of the Fire Commissioner talking to Shared Health about the issue. “Setting up something similar to what MPI does where they pay for our response.”
In total, firefighters dedicated 4,398 hours to the 236 calls with 18 per cent, or 792 hours spent responding in the RM of Dauphin and 3,606 hours worked in the city. One per cent, 30 hours was spent assisting neighbouring departments through the mutual aid system.
Firefighters also dedicated 2,286 hours to regular Wednesday evening training in addition to taking part in numerous weekend training opportunities offered through the Manitoba Emergency Services College.
Some of those opportunities include Firefighting Level I and II classes for members of the mutual aid district along with Incident Command System 200, Vehicle Extrication, Pump Basics, Emergency Vehicle Driving, Pumps Advanced, Grain Rescue, Advanced Fire Dynamics, Occupational Hygiene and Electric Vehicle Training.
With 30 members currently, Abrey said the department is continuing its recruitment efforts, attracting members through a number of different means.
“I’m happy to report that we’ve also resurrected our cadet program with the high school. So we currently have two cadets that are between the ages of 16 and 17 that have been coming out to our training,” he said. “This is something that kind of fizzled during COVID, but we’re glad to see that it’s being fired up again and we have some new interest in that.”
Finally, Abrey told councillors the Firefighters’ Association will be fund-raising in March for Muscular Dystrophy Canada, it’s charity of choice.
“MD has been the firefighters’ charity of choice since 1954, but I guess Dauphin got involved in 1976,” Abrey said. “Since that time it’s over $100,000 that our department has raised for muscular dystrophy.”
On behalf of Dauphin residents, mayor David Bosiak, extended appreciation for the department and its commitment to the safety of everyone in the community.
“I think we have probably one of the best rural fire departments anywhere and a lot of that relates to leadership, so keep leading,” Bosiak said. “We truly appreciate everything that your members do . . . the city truly supports what you’re doing and keep doing it.”
City plan already proving to be a valuable tool
It was years in development, but even though it was only officially adopted at the City’s last regular meeting, Feb. 12, Dauphin’s new development plan is already proving it’s worth.
City manager Sharla Griffiths said administration has already referred to the document last week when answering a query from a ratepayer regarding beautification of a boulevard space.
“A request came to us a week or so before we knew that the document was going to be approved and so we said, ‘can you just hang on a week?’ We got the document approved on Feb. 12, and then later that week we were able to approve the request,” she said.
Required under the Municipal Act, the plan, which replaces one adopted in 2012, serves as a framework for formulating development policies and decisions, identifying factors relevant to the use and development of land, identifying critical problems and opportunities concerning the development of land, setting forth desired timing patterns and characteristics of future development of land, establishing and specifying the programs and actions necessary for the implementation of a development plan, outlining the methods whereby the best use and development of land and other resources in adjacent municipalities, districts or affected areas may be co-ordinated and identifying those matters of government concern which affect the use and development of land and other resources within the municipality.
“It’s an overarching document of how we operate our community. It’s more than just a development plan. The title is City Plan,” Griffiths said. “Usually a development plan looks about five or so years into the future. This looks 20 plus years into the future. I don’t want to say it’s part of a strategic plan or partly strategic plan, but it’s definitely a longer term thinking for us.”
The 112-page document will serve as a framework to move the community ahead in six identified areas - community and innovation, climate leadership and resilience, health and well-being, housing and neighbourhoods, local economy and tourism, and truth and reconciliation.
“Those are really big goals that talk more than just what our neighbourhoods look like, but really what our community will look like or what we want it to look like. It really does set the tone and set the vision of our community, of where we want to go,” Griffiths said. “Some of the goals, or the action items, or objectives in the report help us to actually quantify and take action.”
And beyond that, Griffiths said, the process itself proved to be extremely beneficial.
“I think that there’s nothing new here it’s just more formalized. But going through the process of developing the city plan allowed us to talk in a more structured format about some of these things, so that’s a real benefit,” she said.
To push the process further down the road, Griffiths said the City will now examine its Zoning Bylaw to ensure there are no conflicts.
“To make sure that the development plan, or the city plan, and the zoning bylaw are talking and have the same goals.” she said. “If you’re looking at it, the city plan is one level above and the zoning bylaw feeds into it.”
The process will be similar to the one used to formulate the city plan, with an outside consultant contracted to lead the process.
“We did it in-house back in 2014-15 and now we’re going to look for some outside expertise,” Griffiths said. “And make sure that we get into the community and hear what people have to say.”
Police call drop related to weather
The decline in calls for service when comparing the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2023 is to be expected, RCMP Staff-Sgt. Scott Linklater told Dauphin city councillors as he updated them on police activities, last week.
As part of his presentation during council’s regular meeting, Feb. 12, Linklater said total calls for service at the local detachment during the period covering Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, was 1,261 compared to 1,740 during the previous quarter, a drop of 28 per cent.
“This is typical. In summertime most people are out there moving around and as cooler months start settling in people stay in and are a little bit quieter,” he said. “So this is a normal trend that we see.”
In fact, decreases were seen across all statistical categories, Linklater said. From October to December, there were 96 reports of offenses against people compared to 129 the previous quarter, a drop of 26 per cent. Total property offenses in the fourth quarter came in at 254 compared to 260, a decrease of two per cent while enforcement of provincial statutes for the fourth quarter was 179 compared to 227 from July to September, a drop of 22 per cent. Criminal Code charges classified under the “other” heading totalled 139 in the fourth quarter compared to 177 the previous quarter, a decrease of 21 per cent.
Call to assist the public in other types of files amounted 251, down 14 per cent from the 293 in the previous quarter, while prisoners held during the last quarter totalled 102, down from 136 over the summer.
“Out of RCMP West District, which includes Portage to the Saskatchewan border and from the US border all the way up to and including Swan River, we tend to be one of the busiest detachments in that area,” Linklater told councillors. “Our busiest month was November, where we had 46 total files per member and the average for the whole district was 26. So it’s almost twice as much. Our members do a lot of work and carry a big workload, but they get the job done.”
Traffic enforcement in the area has scaled up, Linklater added, and has resulted in the seizure of more guns and drugs than normal as criminals passing through the area are targetted.
From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, police recovered four illegal firearms and seized 432 grams of cocaine, 4-1/2 grams of methamphetamine and 118 grams of Psilocybin (magic mushrooms). Gun seizures included three long guns, two of which were sawed off and one handgun.
“That is all due to the proactive efforts of our members going out there and doing traffic enforcement and actually using the laws available to interdict these things,” Linklater said.
Traffic enforcement in the fourth quarter also saw 340 traffic infractions with 248 tickets issued. Police laid three charges for impaired operation of a vehicle, two charges of refusing to provide a breath sample and six other Criminal Code related traffic offenses. There were 34 collisions during the period, 30 of which were reportable for property damage.
“I think overall we’re doing well,” Linklater said, adding he has recently heard comments that Dauphin is a dangerous city. “I don’t think we are. I don’t think we’re any more dangerous than any other city in Canada. We do have violence like every other community, but most of the violence that we’re dealing with, it’s people that are known to each other. There’s not a lot of just random violence."
Property offenses are a different story, he added, as it seems people are willing to pick up anything that is not nailed down. Phone scams are also on the rise, he said.
“We’ve had several of them over the last few months where I think victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s amazing how much people are losing and that’s only what’s been reported. There’s a lot that doesn’t get reported because people are embarrassed,” Linklater said.
When it comes to staffing, the chronic shortages that have plagued the local detachment, along with many detachments across the country, are starting to subside.
In fact, there are four corporals, all active duty, working out the local detachment, one over the normal allotment. And while the detachment is supposed to have 18 constables, there are two soft vacancies with people away on leave and two open positions, which should be filled by early summer.
Finally, with Linklater’s recent promotion, a new sergeant has been identified to replace him and should be in place sometime this coming summer.
“So our staffing situation looks really well. We have a good blend of members who are proactive and out in the community,” Linklater said.
Retail development planned for Main Street South
Dauphin’s retail landscape is about to fill out a little more as Shoppers Drug Mart Ltd. has taken out a City of Dauphin building permit to construct a new store.
The store, planned for the former Village Mall location at 1430 Main Street South, will be approximately 15,000 square feet in size and employ up to 30 people. Construction costs are estimated at $2.45 million.
While not commenting specifically on the Shoppers Drug Mart project, mayor David Bosiak said retail developments are vital for the future of the community.
“Any kind of development that increases assessment is strategically important for our community, because it’s the only way that we can grow. And when I say grow, I mean grow sustainably. I’m not reaching for double digit growth like some of the communities around the southeast corner of the province have experienced and the challenges that come with that,” Bosiak said, adding that by making Dauphin a great place to live, work and raise a family, growth will follow. I believe that our council has a very strategic opinion on how we can grow sustainably, having wonderful community culture, by creating an environment of willingness to work together and to work on projects and the partnerships that we have coming down the road.”
Among those partnerships are the ones the City has with Pine Creek and Ebb and Flow First Nations with which they are currently involved in an addition to reserve process.
“We’re not chasing the big factories, we’re not chasing sort of low paid, under skilled workers. We’re chasing community builders. People who want to come and stay in our community,” Bosiak said, adding he has made a point of interacting with newcomers to the community to get a sense of how things are going. “And most of them seem pretty positive about the community and what they can get here. We’re close enough to Winnipeg and a big airport, but it’s a stable quality of life with, I’d like to believe good leadership, both administration and at city hall, with the right kind of initiatives coming out the other end.”
As a way of facilitating the Shoppers development, and at the same time sending a message out into the world that Dauphin is open for business, a special incentive package was developed by the Economic Development department to secure the development.
The package, valued at up to $50,000 includes:
• A rebate on water and sewer hook-up costs up to $25,000, conditional to the City performing the work. Payment would take place after construction has been completed and all bills are paid. Value: $25,000
• A 50 per cent rebate on dumping fees for the demolition waste from taking up the existing concrete slab brought to the City’s landfill site. Again payment would take place after construction has been completed and all bills are paid. Value: $5,000
• A 25 per cent rebate on the first two years of the net difference in the municipal portion of property taxes between the current assessment and the newly-assessed value of the property after completion. Value: $20,000.
Construction of the new store is expected to begin this spring, as soon as conditions allow.
Incentives such as this, tailor made to a specific project is quite likely the way of the future, Bosiak said.
“We have a couple of different kinds of incentives, but we also understand that one glove doesn’t fit everyone’s hand. So if we want to ensure that we’re responsive and that when we get into discussions or negotiations that the other entity or partner or proponent will understand that we can work with them,” he said. “So that if others want to come here, they know that they will get fair and equitable treatment.”
But, Bosiak added, there is only so much a municipality can provide to anyone and council and city administrators are acutely aware about not making promises that can not be delivered.
“It doesn’t quite happen and then, oops what do we do now?” he said. "So tailor made is probably a great way to describe how we want to move forward.”
Buckwold Bridge contract awarded
Work on rehabilitation of the Buckwold Bridge is expected to begin soon after city councillors awarded the contract at a special meeting, Feb. 5.
Five bids were received for the project with the lowest quote of $1,089,908.47 from Armcon Ltd., of Stonewall, eventually chosen.
Dauphin director of Public Works and Operations, Mike VanAlstyne said the quotes received did not come as a shock, like when the bids for Main Street South came in.
“They are slightly higher than our estimate, but within an acceptable range, for sure,” he said.
VanAlstyne said Dauphinites can expect to see work begin by the end of the month as the site is prepared for construction season.
“The contractor will install a netting, a mesh underneath the bridge to prevent any birds from nesting, and there may be some slope work this spring before spring runoff,” he said. “Then we anticipate the contractor to be starting the deck rehab work probably in May at some point.”
The project involves partial depth replacement of the entire deck, placement of new glass fiber reinforced polymer reinforcing, placement of new concrete, compression seal replacement, targeted local repairs to curb and girder ends and installation of rip rap with an eye toward protection of utilities, environmental protection and restoration of the site.
Buckwold Bridge lies on Fourth Avenue Southwest. As part of a major east-west route within the city the contract puts an emphasis on time with performance penalties for missed deadlines.
All works associated with rip rap and bird net installation need to be completed no later than Mar. 31, while the substantial completion date – all rehabilitation works, including girder end repairs and removal of traffic control has been set at June 28. Daily liquidated damages, should either of these deadlines be missed will be charged to the contractor at the rate of $2,500 per calendar day until the work is completed.
The overall completion date for all works including any deficiencies, removal of temporary works and site restoration is July 12, with daily liquidated damages charged at $1,000 per day.
As the rehabilitation of the bridge is straightforward with really no structural repairs required, VanAlstyne expects the contractor will be faced with few, if any challenges.
“(The bridge) is in good shape,” he said. “We have to do a little bit of repairs to the ends of the girders, the underside beams, but just to kind of prevent further spread of chloride intrusion.”
Other bids received as part of the request for proposals included MD Steele Construction at $1,439,674.19, Fort Richmond Construction at $2,484,870, and Minty’s Moving at $2,486,780. A non-compliant bid was also received from Western Construction Services.
The work will be paid for by the City’s Gas Tax Reserve and funding provided by the Province.
MVSD gets a bump in funding from province
While there is still plenty of work to do to finalize Mountain View School Division’s 2024-25 operating budget, a big piece of the puzzle was revealed last week as part of the Province’s education funding announcement.
And while the funding plan contains a lot of information to digest, MVSD secretary-treasurer Lori Slepicka said the division will be working with more provincial resources than it had last year.
“We are receiving an increase of two per cent in our provincial funding, so that’s in a positive direction,” Slepicka said. “There was a huge decrease in our formula funding due to a decrease in student enrolment and now we’re on the formula guarantee, which is their promise to make sure that no division gets less money through the formula than what they would have received in the previous year. And then there’s a bunch of extra funds outside of the formula.”
MVSD will receive a total of $26.4 million in operating support, representing an increase of .9 per cent over last year’s allocation, along with an additional $300,000 targeted to child nutrition programs for a total of $26.7 million in provincial funds for the coming year.
“So a portion of that funding has to very specifically be used for (the child nutrition) program,” Slepicka said adding programs currently run in most, if not all schools in the division and it remains to be see how the new money will be used. “ Most of it is operated through the schools directly and they apply for grant funding on their own. Divisionally we don’t fund breakfast programs currently. We have to see. We haven’t received any details other than the dollar amount and that it has to specifically be used for nutrition programs, but what the parameters of that are . . . no details yet as to how we have to spend it other than on nutrition.”
As part of it’s announcement the Province also lifted the restrictions on local taxation, allowing school boards to go to ratepayers to raise funds.
“We haven’t got anywhere near finalizing numbers or anything like that, so will we be presenting a deficit budget or a balanced budget? I’m not sure yet. The other thing that changed this year is they’ve lifted the restrictions on the local taxation, so that’s an option this year. And we’re not anywhere near having those answers yet.”
Overall, the Province’s support for education increased by 3.4 per cent, an amount higher than the provincial rate of inflation, Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Nello Altomare said.
“After years of feeling the pinch, schools and kids deserve a government that’s ready to fund them at the level they deserve,” Altomare said, adding the increase addresses growing enrolment and supports classroom needs. “Funding will be stable and predictable for divisions while we develop a new funding model for the next fiscal year. For kids, this funding will ensure every student gets the support they need including a universal nutrition program to keep kids fed, healthy and ready for learning.”
Slepicka hopes the new funding model makes things more fair and equitable and that MVSD will see a few more dollars once it is implemented.
“For years everybody has been saying the formula doesn’t work, the formula doesn’t work,” she said.
“So hopefully we come up with a formula that is that will work better and there won’t be all of that funding outside of the formula.”
The 2024-25 funding of schools is an overall increase of $104.2 million that includes:
• $51.5 million in operating costs for public schools;
• $3 million toward smaller class sizes;
• $27.5 million for nutrition programming;
• $11.3 million for capital support, which includes principal and interest costs related to building schools; and
• $10.9 million to independent schools as per their funding agreement.
Health care culture change the way to meet staffing challenges: Kinew
Speaking at an event celebrating improvements being made to the Dauphin Regional Health Centre, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said it is time to start changing the culture of health care in Manitoba.
“We have to fix the culture on the front lines in our health care facilities right across Manitoba. We have to send that message that help is coming whether you’re a physician, whether you’re a nurse, whether you’re a health care professional, and that we’re serious about improving work life balance,” The premier said,
The local project, which involves development of a larger and more modern space to support cancer patients, construction of a stand alone endoscopy unit and the addition of nine new patient beds, will require as many as two dozen new health professionals to properly staff.
According to Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert, the plan is to utilize agency nurses to cover the positions, while a more permanent solution is developed.
“That’s something we have to do, not something we want to do. But we want to make sure that we’re offering the services that are needed and so we will continue to do that as long as we have to,” he said. “Definitely here in Dauphin we have issues with vacancies. However, I have to say that lately we’ve been seeing some improvements in our staffing.”
While leader of the opposition, Kinew was critical of the government when it came to the use of agency nurses across the province. And while his position has not changed, the problem can not be solved through a mandate, Kinew said, adding the number of nurses working on the frontlines in Manitoba will have to be built up gradually by focussing on retention.
Kinew said there are many reasons a nurse will go to work at an agency, such as more control over scheduling or more pay.
“They’re running away from the mistakes of the previous government mandated over time, disrespect from the employer. So these are things that we’re turning the page on. We’re serious about improving culture,” he said.
Citing the new Neepawa Training Centre and additional good work by Assiniboine Community College (ACC) in communities throughout the province to train health care professionals, Kinew said there is a comprehensive approach to training nurses under way. But simply training more nurses is not enough if you can not retain them in the public system.
“If we’re just adding those nurses to the same culture, they’re going to flee the bedside, too,” Kinew said. “So fixing the culture, retention in health care, has to be the first priority. And as we do that, as we strengthen the health human resource capacity, that’s where you’ll see agency nurse use go down. The best way for us to reduce the reliance on nursing agencies is not for us to mandate an end of agency nurse use, it’s for us to make working on the front lines and the public settings like this one so attractive that a nurse would rather choose to work here than for a nursing agency.”
In short, nursing, and other health professions need to be looked at as viable career paths and that can be achieved through partnerships with agencies such as ACC, who are already out in communities doing the heavy lifting.
“The message we want to send to young people across Manitoba is if you’re growing up in Grandview or Tootinaowaziibeeng or Dauphin or Duck Bay or Camperville, you can be a doctor, you can be a nurse, you can be an X-Ray tech, and the path is going to be very convenient and accessible for you to pursue that,” Kinew said. “So we do that, we bring everybody into the front lines, we work together on improving the culture and the working conditions. It’s not going to happen overnight, right, but if we remain committed to that path, I think that’s how we do it.”
The premier added the details of an online bridging program allowing Licensed Practical Nurses to become RNs in conjunction with ACC will be released soon.
“So that they can keep working in their existing settings,” Kinew said. “ACC, you know, they’re doing a ton of good work on this already. We’re going to collaborate with them, to support them and just make sure we can do more to bring people to the front lines.”