A key piece from last week's education funding announcement was made without much emphasis but quickly caught the attention of school boards.

That being the end to the multi-year freeze for school boards to pass an education tax levy onto ratepayers. Western School Division (WSD) Board Chair, Brian Fransen it was part of the announcement that "flew under the radar."
    
During the multi-year freeze, Fransen says Western grew significantly more than two percent, and they have not been able to keep their public school funding on pace with the growth they've had in the region.

"I think the government, in their way, the current government said, 'Well, why do we need to even make an announcement, because you always have the right tax?' Yet at the same time, the previous Conservative government tied our hands and said that there would be consequences if we increased the local tax burden beyond two percent."

During the multi-year freeze, Fransen says Western grew significantly more than two percent, and they have not been able to keep their public school funding on pace with the growth they've had in the region.

"Our annual budget is an operational budget for the division, and so there have been different schools of thought in terms of how new school funding should happen," added Fransen. "And as we've transitioned from one provincial government to the next, we're a little bit afraid that we're going to be get caught in the middle, where one government thought that they should be done in a certain way and the other thought it should be done a different way, and where is the money going to come from to make it happen?"

Is it gonna end up on the local burden or is it gonna end up eventually funded? So that's an ongoing discussion. And I mean we, we have a lot of big decisions to make shortly. 

As elected officials, Fransen said the board is elected to represent the community and have some big discussions to have.

Borrowing a line from Spiderman, Fransen said, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

~ With files from Robyn Wiebe ~