By Lisa Schick

Cash for a Prince Albert school

Mar 24, 2011 | 6:24 AM

The Saskatchewan Government is extending the “Saskatchewan Advantage” to education.

The 2011-12 budget was released Wednesday afternoon and it had a few important announcements for education in the province.

The budget allocates about $19 million dollars for capital projects across the province and Prince Albert schools are getting a piece of that pie.

Carlton Comprehensive High School’s new gymnasium is one of nine projects which have been granted Approval-in-Principal status.

Wayne Steen, chair of the Saskatchewan Rivers School Board, said they are really glad to have the gym approved.

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“We’re extremely happy, we’ve got the gymnasium project for Carlton high school that we’ve been working on for six or eight years now and to get that moved ahead and approved so that we can get on with, (it’s) extremely important to the school division and we’re extremely happy to get it.”

Carlton is the largest high school in the province and Steen said the additional gym space is desperately needed, “this is a big deal for us.”

The next step for the Carlton gym is the detailed design process.

Other moneys have been allocated for Prince Albert and area school improvements.

The government is also reducing education taxes for residential and farmland properties by 20 and 80 per cent respectively.

The mill rates being reduced on farmland from 7.08 to 3.91 and the mill rates on residential properties will go down from 10.08 to 9.51.

Steen said the change in the taxes would likely be about a hundred dollars a year for an average sized property.

The tax reductions are fulfilling promises the government made in the education tax reduction plan.

The budget has also allocated an increase of $32 million in overall funding for school divisions, $2.9 million for programs for greater educational success of First Nations and Métis students, $2.6 million to develop new pre-kindergarten programs and others.

Steen said overall they are extremely happy with the new budget.

lschick@panow.com