The Garden Valley School Division (GVSD) is hosting a pre-budget consultation on Tuesday evening.
    
Chair, Leah Klassen says the consult was moved up from February based on feedback indicating that was too late in the budget planning process.

"The feedback that we receive at the end of February, by that time a lot of the budget has already been put in place," said Klassen. "So the board wants the most amount of transparency that we can get. So we decided to do the consult at the end of November."

After people have been welcomed by trustees at Tuesday's consultation, Klassen said they will go over what the budget process typically looks like in regards to the board's process. They will then break out into table groups, each hosted by a trustee, to discuss a list of five questions.

"In the past, it's been more of an informative night for the public regarding what might happen with their school taxes," said Klassen. "As you know, we haven't been able to raise taxes in the last couple of years, so it hasn't been a big surprise as far as what people are to expect on their property tax this year for this meeting. We won't have any of that. We'll talk about process, but we won't talk about numbers. We'll talk about what should be considered as far as budgetary spending."

Once the board receives the funding announcement from the government in the new year, and the budget is more set, Klassen said they will host another public meeting.

Meanwhile, at the end of the business portion of MSBA's annual fall general meeting on Friday, Klassen said the 250 trustees in attendance had the opportunity to meet with the new Minister of Education.

"Friday, Minister (Nello) Altomare had spoken to the whole group of trustees and we got a sense as to what this government had in mind for education. It was a very nice, refreshing conversation with him in regards to the collaboration that his government hopes to have with school boards moving forward with school boards moving forward." 

GVSD's pre-budget consultation will take place at Northlands Parkway Collegiate, at 7 pm.