Due to a claw back from the provincial government, each student within Grande Yellowhead Regional Division (GYRD) which oversees the Jasper schools has lost about $160 in funding.

For Dean Lindquist, superintendent of GYRD, this puts the board in quite the predicament as they’re still waiting for an announcement about funding for the long overdue high school.

“That’s a real worry of mine,” he said. “The minister continues to make remarks that when the budget is back on track, that school is on the top of the list.”

With a funding cut of around $250,000, chair of GYRD’s board John Stitzenberger said he’s quite unhappy about the disproportionate cuts between rural and city school boards.

Looking at the bigger picture, Stitzenberger pointed out that city and urban school boards received a cutback of anywhere between $4 and $40 per child, while GYRD’s cut was nearly four times the size.

“You compare that with the relative cost of purchasing goods in rural areas, and it’s just unfair.”

“We spoke to our MLAs about how we felt it was unfair and they said that they’re obviously very concerned about their budget,” said Stitzenberger.

While Stitzenberger said he expected to hear some cuts in their budget for the year, there was absolutely no warning that there would be a clawback of such proportions.

“We knew that cutbacks were happening and we expected some line items to be adjusted or reduced,” he said.

According to Stitzenberger the cuts amount to 11 per cent of the budget and are taken from last years numbers in August 2008. 

The government is taking money that has already been spent as some projects are complete. “We did a project at Evansberg that amounted to about $450,000... and now 11 per cent of that money has been taken back,” he said. 

Currently there are no projects in the works for Jasper, as the board awaits a funding announcement for a new high school, but other projects the board had planned may be put on hold.

“With the price of natural gas where it is now... I really don’t think you’re going to see many projects, it’s very disappointing.”

“We have not seen a lot of money poured into this division in quite some time now,” Stitzenberger added, “the newest school in our division is 25 years old.”

He also highlighted that the claw-back took money from each line on the budget – including technology, transportation, and even the individual schools reserves.

Thus, money that Jasper Jr./Sr. High School and Elementary school had been putting away in reserves has also received an 11 per cent cut. 

However, the board will be topping each individual schools reserve back up, said Stitzenberger.

Despite the cut, Lindquist and Stitzenberger remain confident that – thanks to reserves - the board will be able to cover the shortfall.

“In the long term, we’re going to be okay,” Lindquist said. “One of the things we’re looking at in these cuts is that we don’t want to affect classrooms.” 

While the pair remain optimistic that the funds will not impact students’ learning, Stitzenberger is not so optimistic about the prospect of getting the funds back once the provincial deficit has been recovered. 

“This was taken out of our reserves... we expect them to return them to us,” he said, “we expect them to honour that... and that might be a long way down the road.”