March 12, 2018
Statement from Minister Friesen and Minister Wishart on Innovating the Delivery of New Public Schools
As a key deliverable of our 2018 provincial budget, we are pleased to confirm the Manitoba government will be proceeding with the construction of five new schools with initial capacity for 3,300 students and 392 child-care spaces.
With a total investment of well over $100 million, work will begin on the following new schools over the course of the next two years:
• Brandon School Division – Southeast Brandon (kindergarten to Grade 8);
• Pembina Trails School Division – Waverley West (kindergarten to Grade 8);
• Pembina Trails School Division – Waverley West (grades 9 to 12);
• Seven Oaks School Division – Precinct ‘E’ (kindergarten to grade 5); and
• Winnipeg School Division – Waterford Green (kindergarten to Grade 8).
Last year, we announced that we would explore the feasibility and benefits of building four new schools using a P3 partnership model, and we retained KPMG to advise us to learn from the experience of other jurisdictions.
After a careful review of the information provided to us, with the expertise gained we have decided to build these schools by enhancing our conventional Public Schools Finance Board (PSFB) approach.
The PSFB has been able to harness many of the same ‘bulk buy’ savings that would be available to P3 schools, leverage the scale of building multiple schools at once and accelerate the process.
As a result of our commitment to shop smarter on behalf of the taxpayer, we have identified at least $18 million in savings over conventional costs and are able to fund the construction of one more school than initially planned.
While we remain fully committed to the benefits of P3s and partnering with private enterprise, we will always take a pragmatic – not ideological – approach to infrastructure financing, and seek to find the best value for taxpayers.
Our goal since day one has been to catch up with the need for new schools and deliver quality, new learning environments for our students and educators at the best possible price.
The PSFB intends to issue tenders for the Waterford Green, Precinct E and Brandon schools by the end of 2018, and for Waverley West the following year.
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION ATTACHED
Backgrounder
Maps - https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/newslinks/2018/03/BG-Winnipeg-Brandon_School_Locations-ET-FI.pdf
Backgrounder - https://www.gov.mb.ca/asset_library/en/newslinks/2018/03/BG-Schools-FI-ET.pdf