$136M cut from K-12 funding: ATA

By JEREMY APPEL on February 11, 2020.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

The Alberta Teacher’s Association has gotten its hands on documents that suggest K-12 education funding has been cut $136 million from the previous school year, contrary to the education minister’s claims.

Since enrolment has increased by 13,000 students from the previous year, the ATA says this amounts to a four per cent reduction in per-pupil funding.

ATA president Jason Schilling told the News the ATA sought out the documents, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information request, because there was information missing from the education budget.

“When you get the budget document, you get the proposed budget and then it projects out, but you usually get the actuals. That was the column that was missing from the budget documents,” Schilling said.

The union also heard from multiple school boards across the province that they were short funds, with some having to make substantial cuts.

Medicine Hat Public School Division was one, although it was able to plug the hole in its budget with a combination of reserve funds and the province’s $153-million transition grant, without having to resort to layoffs or programming reductions this year.

Chair Rick Massini, who has repeatedly expressed concern about an unsustainable budget shortfall, says the documents confirmed the board’s suspicions.

“The ATA release confirms some of the questions we had regarding the budget. I don’t think it was really a surprise to us,” said Massini.

The documents contain the actual funding for 2018-19 and projections for 2019-2020.

Medicine Hat public’s show $78.589 million for 2018-19 versus $75.48 million projected for 2019-2020 – a $3.514-million disparity.

For the separate school board, there’s a $883,000 discrepancy – from $28.414 million in 2018-19 to $27.531 million for this school year.

Schilling said there’s some confusion regarding the budget for the school year, which goes from September through August, and the fiscal year, which runs from April through March.

“When they talk about maintaining the funding, they capture a little bit of the 2017 school year and a little bit of the 2018-19 school year into that one year, and there’s enrolment differences between the two years,” he said.

“It’s an average between the two, but the average is less than we had.”

Massini says he hopes these funding issues will be addressed in the upcoming provincial budget for 2020-21.

“We do remain hopeful that the government plans to deliver on their assurances that all of the $8.223 budget will make its way into the schools. We also remain hopeful that the government will provide clarity and transparency, so we can actually sit down and properly understand how to allocate resources to support student learning,” he said.

The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education declined comment for this story.

While previously it was the ATA’s word against the government’s, Schilling says the union now has “actual numbers in black and white.”

However, he stopped short of characterizing Education Minister Adriana LaGrange’s repeated statement that no funds were cut, but simply frozen, as a deliberate falsehood.

“I don’t know if I would call it an outright lie, but I feel that the information that we were looking for was being suppressed and it was unfortunate that we actually had to FOIP to get the information, especially the column in the budget that has always been there,” said Schilling.

Massini said LaGrange has vowed to continue providing transition funds next year.

“We’re suspending judgment on that and hoping for the best,” he said. “We’re concerned about the programs and services we offer our students. We want to continue to provide those services and see the growth that we’ve been experiencing over the past couple of years.”

Colin Aitchison, a spokesperson for LaGrange, accused the ATA of “trying to mislead Albertans” in an emailed statement.

Previously, the ATA said the government has “legitimate claims” to having maintained K-12 funding, but Aitchison says they’ve now changed their tune and are attempting “to walk their previous statements back.”

He insisted the government has maintained schools’ overall funding at $8.223 billion, with the same base instruction rate per student.

“We are actively working towards a new funding model for the 2020-21 school year which will better manage system growth, provide funding predictability and ensure funds are directed to the classroom,” said Aitchison.

“It is completely normal for program-specific funding to vary year to year. But total education funding remains the same, and enrollment (sic) growth was accounted for.”

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