Yes. Thank you.
When we submitted our agreement with ISC and it was formalized in August 2019, that submission of our agreement included a comprehensive budget. The authority received acknowledgement from our leadership in our three communities that the authority would be responsible for pre-kindergarten to grade 12 programming in their schools. We would assume full responsibility financially with facilities, programming delivery and all aspects of the delivery of education—similar to, for example, a provincial school division, although we remain an independent authority and non-political in its total context.
Within our submission was a budget submitted to ISC to recognize the geographic location of our communities. They are in the extreme north, just south of the Northwest Territories border. The isolation factor certainly creates many challenges for us to serve our schools in a comprehensive manner. The funding that was submitted to ISC was totally based on need in terms of program facilities and the operation of an education authority or a school division in a county.
To date, after three and a half years of trying to negotiate and finalize the funding, that is the only piece of our agreement that remains to be settled. We have not as yet had any kind of commitment. We have presented many arguments to finalize our agreement with our funding based on need, and every year the costs are going up and up. The funding that we currently receive is strictly what the bands were receiving at the time of our inception. All funding, rather than being directed to the bands and the leadership, is now directed specifically to the authority to operate the schools and programs in every aspect, including transportation, facilities, teacher wages, etc.
That funding doesn't even come close, now that the ISC has gone to a provincial formula. In Saskatchewan, the provincial formula does not meet the needs of our provincial schools, let alone our isolated communities. No other division has the isolation factor that we do, with its challenges. Just the flight to get my board members into our Prince Albert office for regular meetings, two days of meetings, costs our authority $45,000. That's just to get our board members there for two days.
On our funding, we have been pleading and pleading to finalize this aspect of our agreement, which to date still has not realized any kind of commitment. We have pleaded also to have an audience with Treasury Board so that we can present our package and defend it with the knowledge we have of our communities in terms of the geography and the challenges of isolated communities. We've not yet had any kind of response from the minister's office in terms of having that ability, knowing full well that others have had that ability to present their funding ask in front of Treasury Board.
All we ask for is equity and the same opportunity to defend our ask, based totally on program needs and on the needs of our students, whose current education is strictly academic. I have 50 years' experience in education. I'm not new to this game. When I see our children in our schools receiving a strictly academic program, what incentive is there for them to come to school other than to be with their peers?