What was announced as $22-million budget cut to the Education Sector on Wednesday afternoon, will affect the Chinook School Division the most.

Upon the budget being released by the government of Saskatchewan's, the Chinook School Division was handed a $5.94-million budget cut.

"The actual funding reduction is significantly higher than we had planned," Chief Financial Officer Rod Quintin. "Now we're at a place where we have to go back and plan more to address the additional amount of $3.3-million more than we had planned for."

The Chinook School Division received the largest budget cut out of the 28 provincial school boards.

"It was a combination of three things," Quintin told Swift Current Online. "There was a general cut based on the government's reduced contribution to education. Then there is always changes in our school division profile, with respect to student numbers, schools and bus routes. The third piece which is the big one for us is that there was a funding redevelopment that happened over the last 18 months and it's been implemented in this budget cycle, so we're feeling the full brunt of the funding redevelopment plus the other two factors."

The 7.3% overall reduction for the school board has created significant decreases in multiple areas. The largest cut percentage-wise will be governance, which will see a minimum reduction in funding of 35.6%. Four other specific areas will also see significant funding cut; supports for learning decreased by 24%, instructional resources decreased by 12%, transportation decreased by 9% and plant operation and maintenance decreased by 4.3%.

With the numbers just being released by the government, the Chinook School Division is looking at multiple ways to reduce their growing deficit.

"Everything is going to be on the table (when looking at the budget), there isn't anything that we haven't looked at yet," Quintin stated. "To be fair to the board we need to work with them to look at whatever else we need to add to what we've agreed on to address the additional amount we need to find."

The reductions to the school board budget would raise their 2017-18 fiscal budgets needs from approximately $5.4-million to approximately $8.7-million.