Committee backs city funds for school playgrounds

A Saskatoon city council committee backed spending nearly $1 million for playground equipment at the eight new schools being built in the city.

Lynne Lacroix, the City of Saskatoon’s director of recreation and community services, called the situation “unique” and cautioned that existing schools with similar needs would not be eligible for similar money.

City council’s planning, development and community services committee on Monday approved up to $800,000 for playground equipment at the four new jointuse schools built by the province. The committee also backed spending up to $400,000 for landscaping between the school sites and adjacent parks.

“We just want to be very transparent about why (the city is funding) these and not others,” Lacroix told Monday’s meeting.

Coun. Darren Hill noted many schools and community associations are faced with fundraising and waiting for city money to become available to repair and replace playground structures.

The money to pay for the play structures at new schools in Hampton Village, Stonebridge, Rosewood and Evergreen is slated to come from a special fund for building community recreation centres.

The community centre fund is collected through a special levy on lot sales.

It was introduced 15 years ago to address the lack of community centres in new neighbourhoods after the province cancelled plans to build new schools in them.

In 2015, city council approved using the community centre reserve fund of about $20 million to purchase land for the new school sites with the understanding that the money guaranteed community access to the school facilities.

In addition to the purchase of land, $3.9 million was set aside for other costs. The $1.2 million approved by the committee on Monday would come from this money. City council still needs to approve the spending.

A joint letter from the superintendents of Saskatoon Public Schools and Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools appealed to the city for the funding.

The $200,000 would only cover a fraction of the expected cost of the new playgrounds, the committee heard.

Each school site features a public and a Catholic school and each school would need two sets of playground equipment for junior and senior students. That’s a total of 16 sets of playground equipment.

Playgrounds installed recently by both boards cost about $200,000 per school, meaning the tab for the new schools’ equipment could top $1.6 million.

Public school division superintendent Charlene Scrimshaw said parents in the new neighbourhoods are “desperate” for playgrounds and the situation is “unprecedented.”

“Raising this amount of money is not only taxing, but overwhelming for communities,” Scrimshaw said.

Catholic superintendent John McAuliffe added: “We’ve never opened eight schools in the city in one year.”