The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division passed a balanced 2026-2027 budget which the CFO described as a ‘positive budget.’
Financial Officer Jerrold Pidborochynski presented the budget during Monday’s school board meeting.
Pidborochynski said the division benefited from provincial funding to offset inflationary costs for a third consecutive year.
“There’s funding for inflationary costs including non-teacher salary increases, technology, facilities and transportation with fuel so that increase in funding helps us support those areas,” Pidborochynski said.
The division also received funding for some new student engagement centres. The centres are specialized classrooms that have teachers, educational assistants, social workers, and mental health supports.
The division did not dip into reserves to balance the budget but did take $400,000 from reserves for technology upgrades.
“We usually do that about once every four or five years,” Pidborochynski said.
Pidborochynski said the total budget is $132 million. He said they have been able to maintain staffing levels despite a decrease in enrollment.
“Normally when you have a decrease in enrollment, you have larger cuts,” he explained. “Those were limited, and that would be consistent across the province.”
Pidborochynski said that the student engagement centre classrooms, adding EAs and social workers and the inflationary supports were positives.
Total program support, which includes things like teacher assistant and clerical salaries, was $17,493,734 in 2025-2026. Sask. Rivers budget documents show that the total increases to $18,190,721 in 2026-2027.
“The biggest cost to us is non-teacher salaries. We have an agreement with our CUPE members. As we know, the provincial CBA with teachers ends August 31, so that is not reflected in here. There are no teacher increases built in. It’s just strictly non-teacher staffing,” Pidborochynski said.
Pidborochynski said the program support increase is also visible in transportation where bus driver salaries increased from $1,957,793 to $1,958,564. In the fuel budget, it increased from $6,369 to $6,656.
Pidborychynski also noted an increase in technology support from $2,356,166 to $2,423,177.
Grants played a big part in keeping the school division on track. They account for roughly 86 per cent of the division’s revenue.
Funding from the provincial government increased. The total grants from the Ministry of Education to Saskatchewan school boards increased from 107,818,086 in 2025-2026 to $110,550 in 2025-2026. The Operating Grant for Preventative Maintenance and Renewal (PMR) also increased from $3,452,000 in 2024-2025 to $3,500,429.
The division’s general federal grant remained steady at $21,300. Other provincial grants increased to $489,316.
The Christopher Lake Minor Capital project is not reflected in the budget. The division received approval for the project, but does not know the exact date the funding will arrive.
“We have the minor capital project, they call it minor capital for Christopher Lake, and that’s $8.5 million,” he said. “We were told we’re going to receive $5.8 million. this year. There may be $2.7 million remaining for that project in next year’s budget. The construction is going to happen in next year, right? So now we’re planning stages and design stages and next year is where all the construction is going to take place.”
The Shellbrook amalgamation projects is also in the early design period.
“Anything that we’d see there would just be strictly for design. The construction of that school, we’re looking at still a couple of years away for sure,” Pidborochynski said.
Governance spending decreased from $563,075 in 2025-2026 to $522,149 in 2026-2027.
Instructional salaries and benefits decreased from $$64,228,149 in 2025-2026 to $64,164,157.
Instructional salaries and benefits make up 68.92 per cent of budget expenses.
“In our budget, we have overall, it’s $130 million. Of that, approximately 75 per cent, or $99 million, are salaries,” Pidborochynski explained. “If you want to look at the total number of employees in our budget, we had about 1,127 full time positions that people that we employ. That’s a lot of people.”
Total revenues increased from $128,812,397 to $132,183,584 over last year. Total expenditures also increased from $128,812,397 in 2025-2026 to $132,183,584 in 2026-2027.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
