b'ManitobaUpdateReport to the CSBA Board of DirectorsMay 20232023 School Funding Announcement While MSBA provided a verbal update on this item at the February CSBA BoD meeting, it bears outlining (for posterity) that Manitobas 2023 Announcement occurred on February 2 and represented an approximate total 12 percent increase to the K-12 budget, including confirmation of funding previously announced in 2022 in support of public education. With several years of underfunding however, this dramatic increase, even while guaranteeing that no school board would experience less than two percent funding to their individual budgets in 2023/24, still comes with significant impacts for operations. While the avoidance of flat or negative increase to funding was indeed welcome this year, it bears noting that the Governments failure to keep pace with inflationary adjustments for the past quarter century in Manitoba has produced a half billion dollar gap in operating funding. When combined with ongoing repealment and capping of property taxation revenues, along with a growing capital maintenance deficit, it is important for our peers to understand the overall complexities involved with this at-the-same-time historic funding announcement in Manitoba. On April 11, Minister of Education Wayne Ewasko informed divisions that consultations regarding the long anticipated funding review (that seeks to address many concerns) would resume later in spring, 2023 following suspension of progress on implementation of a new education funding model as was originally scheduled to be in place for the current budget year. Establishment of the Ministers Education Council On the same day CSBA table officers met with Manitoba Minister of Education Wayne Ewasko in conjunction with the February BoD in Winnipeg, that meeting was preceded by the inauguration of a new Education Council comprised of K-12, early childhood, community, and Indigenous partners. The new Ministerial Advisory Council on Education will cohere with the respective mandates of the Department of Education, school boards, and other partners by serving as a central body for monitoring ongoing implementation of the recommendations arising from the K-12 Review Commission while also facilitating system-level planning and collaboration by receiving input and feedback on emerging items that are of mutual interest. Release of final report of the Poverty and Education Task ForceBuilding upon the November 2022 release of the final report of the Ministers Advisory Council on Inclusive Education https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/action_plan/docs/minister_advisory_report.pdf and the January, 2023 Task Force on Student Engagement and Attendance (which culminated in the issuance of a Ministerial directive to all boards on system-wide policy coherence and data collection/sharing on pupil attendance https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/attendance/index.html) as well as a School, Keep Going publicity campaign https://www.gov.mb.ca/keepgoing/index.html, on February 27 the Department of Education released further recommendations on poverty and education https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/action_plan/docs/petf_final_report_eng.pdf Among the next steps involved with this last report is a request by the Government for all school divisions to issue formal public commitments in writing to those recommendations in the report that divisions feel they can collectively address. The Government has signalled a fall, 2023 publication deadline for these public commitments from school divisions.'