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This article was published 23/2/2017 (1303 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg School Division board has a habit of picking fights with education ministers — now it’s Manitoba Education Minister Ian Wishart’s turn.

Wishart was not impressed that when he directed school boards to look internally to hold down costs, the WSD board picked some of its most popular and valuable programs and services to chop first.

Trustees said they can hold property taxes to a three per cent increase if they remove nursery from half their elementary schools, reduce library staff, stop funding police officers who serve as school resource officers and slash all 66 adult crossing guards.

He expects school boards to make a serious attempt to cut costs, starting with their administration, Wishart said in an interview.

"We’re a little disappointed that they didn’t do a little more due diligence. There’s an element of transparency not in play with WSD," a strategy by trustees that should be readily apparent to division ratepayers, he said.

WSD defended its proposed cuts.

"We’re looking for every nickel between the cushions to keep Winnipeg School Division operating at effective levels. The nursery reductions include reducing the number of schools offering nursery by half," WSD finance chairman Chris Broughton said Wednesday. The administration is identifying schools with the greatest socioeconomic need.

The division would cut all 66 of its adult crossing guards, but hopes it would lose police officers in only three schools — that’s if the province and city continue current funding even if the division pulls out. Ideally, the province and city would make up the difference and no police officers would be lost, Broughton said.

"Should education dollars be put into school resource officers? The reality is, it’s a community policing initiative," he said.

It’s one of three options trustees have presented. The others offer fewer cuts but tax increases of 3.9 and 4.5 per cent.

WSD has one of only three nursery programs in Manitoba, and it’s the only one funded entirely by school property taxes — Frontier and the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine are the others.

During the Filmon government’s austerity years in the ’90s, WSD trustees reduced nursery to eight months a year, not restoring it to the full school year until the NDP was in power.

Wishart has repeatedly told school boards to control spending and to stay within their mandates, but rarely does a WSD board meeting go by in which trustees are not approving one or more motions for new programs and services, most involving new spending and requiring provincial financial support.

The board has advocated extensive new autism support services, provincial youth bail and probation officers stationed in high schools, division-wide equity and arts studies, studies on solar panels on schools and electric school buses, water survival training for students and even the design and construction of a tiny school bus for promotional purposes.

At its next meeting on March 6, the board will debate proposals to establish indigenous artists in residence, a division-wide ride-sharing program and a division-wide food issues council.

Those are all great ideas, Wishart said, but "they all cost money — I’ve told them, concentrate on your mandate."

Two years ago, the former NDP government assigned respected educator John Wiens to investigate the WSD board. Wiens concluded the trustees were an out-of-control board guilty of shameful and reckless dysfunction and recommended the minister fire them.

Trustees were given several extensions of time to clean up their act and WSD trustees have come a long way, Wishart said this week, but the Wiens report is still on his desk. "We haven’t signed off on that," the minister said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca