Noon hour supervision and increased safety were two main concerns heard from the community during Hanover School Division's budget consultation Tuesday night.

Finance chair Rick Peters says parents expressed concerns about a lack of supervision due to overstretching the faculty resources available.

"I think parents are concerned for their students, what's happening with them on the playground on noon hour. It's like how the one parent talked about, in a soccer game when there are 50 kids playing, what's happening in that game? If the supervision isn't there we know kids, it can get out of hand unintentionally or something can happen unintentionally. That's where you need the supervision."

Peters says he feels the division takes care of their money and doesn't know where they could improve, but adds a growing division has its potential challenges.

"Space is a key issue. We heard earlier that we are stretched for space at Mitchell Elementary. We know Mitchell Elementary needs space but we know the growth there means that Mitchell Middle will need future space as well. A growing division is always, I think something we'll be challenged with. It's a good challenge to have."

Meanwhile, Peters says while the division's top priority when making a budget is value for dollar spent, the second is keeping local taxation in mind.

"We live in a division with a lower per pupil assessment and we need to keep that in mind when the mill rate is going up. We know that our mill rate is currently at 15.3 and the provincial average is 13.8. So, we need to keep that in mind as well because there's a finite amount of dollars that people have."

He notes the division plans for a balanced budget and, through provincial mandate, cannot have more than a 4% surplus at the end of each fiscal year.