The Board Chair for Border Land School Division says he would welcome a review of public school funding in Manitoba. The province is planning to take another look at the model, neither confirming or denying that taxation may be included in that review.

Craig Smiley would like to see taxation as part of the discussions and says the current formula isn't working anymore.

"Since assessment has gone up what it has, farmland has all of a sudden taken over as the (sector) that's paying basically all of the school taxes. Something needs to be shifted there so it's an even playing field again."

Manitoba is the only province in Canada that still allows school divisions full taxation authority. This year, education taxes in Border Land School Division went up nearly thirteen per cent. Smiley says part of that spike is thanks to a two per cent overall cut in funding from the province as well as the nixing of several other grants that the Division relied on to offset local taxation. He adds declining enrolment in relation to Border Land's large geography is also a factor.

"They say we are a school division of decreasing enrolment but you have to remember that we have so many schools and we lose one kid here and another kid there. Sure we might lose twenty kids but we don't lose twenty kids in just one building where you could get rid of teacher. It doesn't work that way for us."

Smiley notes the Board is also saving to build a new gym at W.C. Miller Collegiate in Altona.

School board amalgamation could also be on the table during the funding model review but Smiley says he's discovered that this option doesn't save a lot of money in the end. He cites the merger of the former Rhineland, Boundary and Sprague school divisions merged to create Border Land School Division back in 2000 and most recently, municipal amalgamation, as examples.

"You get rid of some top level positions but in our Division we don't have a lot of those. We're not like the City (of Winnipeg) divisions where there's a superintendent on superintendent...here we've got a Superintendent and an Assistant Superintendent. It's not like we have a lot of extra people in our offices."

Meantime, Smiley would like to see representatives from local school boards included in the review process. He hopes this doesn't turn into a case of one or two people making decisions for the whole.