Last night's Portage la Prairie School Board meeting saw the 2017 budget approved.

The School Board set time aside before the vote was taken for people to express their opinions, but no one contacted the Board office to register.

That's something Board Chair Murray McLenehan finds disappointing, in light of reductions in provincial funding.

"I think everyone is hit with so many additional costs," he says, "They just accept that it's one more. Which is wrong, in the fact that we work very hard to keep our costs down. But we still have to maintain, morally and legally, the needs of the students."

McLenehan says if provincial cuts continue, The Board's considering action.

"We've committed to, in the next year, to go back as a group, and just look through the whole line of items, and say if, indeed, the government continues down this path of cutting us back, are there programs that we can cut, and what impact they will have on the community."

The budget contains a $95,000 decrease in provincial funding.