{"id":500040,"date":"2026-02-26T04:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/500040\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:38:11","slug":"winnipeg-school-division-draft-budget-proposes-9-3-mill-rate-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/500040\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg School Division draft budget proposes 9.3% mill rate increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Listen to this article<\/p>\n

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The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Some Winnipeg residents could see their local school taxes rise next year, after the Winnipeg School Division proposed a 9.25 per cent mill rate increase in its draft 2026-27 budget presented to school board trustees on Tuesday evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matt Henderson, the school division’s superintendent, said that increase would bring the mill rate \u2014 the amount of\u00a0tax\u00a0payable per $1,000 of taxable\u00a0assessed value \u2014 to about 15.9. That would mean that a home with an assessed value of just over $270,000 would pay about $65 more annually.<\/p>\n

Homes assessed at $300,000 would pay about $83 more per year and homes worth $400,000 would pay an extra $144, according to a budget presentation delivered on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We feel that that is a responsible ask to the community, particularly as Winnipeg School Division is the glue that keeps the city together,” Henderson said.<\/p>\n

The increased mill rate would be <\/p>\n

\"AHenderson said a recent provincial increase to education funding is ‘lower than the rate of inflation, which means that we have to go to community.’ (Trevor Brine\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Most of the division’s $549.7-million budget goes to paying staff, he said. The draft budget is 4.6 per cent higher than last year’s budget because of “salary pressures” and a “harmonization gap” compared to other divisions in the province, Henderson said.<\/p>\n

“The vast majority of our budget, 80 per cent of our budget, is people. That makes sense when you think about schools \u2014 they’re full of people,” Henderson said. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Manitoba government announced $79.8 million in new provincial funding for the 2026-27 school year. Winnipeg School Division is slated to see its provincial funding rise by 3.8 per cent next year. <\/p>\n

Henderson said that provincial increase is not enough. The bump is “lower than the rate of inflation, which means that we have to go to community,” he said.<\/p>\n

The division’s draft budget keeps a “stand-pat resource level,” with no planned increases to staffing levels, said Henderson. The number of full-time equivalent positions will remain exactly the same as last year, according to the budget presentation, with 2,260 teachers, 1,515 educational assistants and 120 clinicians. <\/p>\n

In addition, the draft budget proposes that money be spent on school and infrastructure repairs, upgrading technology and IT networks, and adding more child-care spaces in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also includes funding for more arts and music, as well as international baccalaureate programming, for middle-years students, and more global issues classes at high schools, Henderson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six schools within the Winnipeg School Division will get full-day kindergarten.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“While that is an increase, we feel that that’s a responsible increase,” Henderson said of the 9.25 per cent mill rate hike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the school division doesn’t expect the draft budget to change much, as the board mulls it over in the coming weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The budget is expected to be passed early next month, Henderson said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-500040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}