In the provincial budget announced last week there was a 1.5% increase in operating funds for education.

As a result, the Chinook Board of Education will face one of its greatest challenges in developing the budget for the upcoming school year.

Director of Education for the Chinook School Division, Mark Benesh, said, "The province funded us a .7 increase, and we all know that inflationary costs are dramatically higher than that. And so, the Division is in a tough place just because we had a budgeted deficit of 4.2 million and the inflationary costs are about 1.5 million. So, the funding that the province gave us, won't cover our teachers costs  or any other inflationary costs."

He added that the present deficit comes mainly from two areas: transportation and staffing and in each they are projecting a $2 million shortfall.