‘It’s not just looking for a handout’
Documents show CBU requested about $4M in extra provincial funding
Documents released under Freedom of Information show that Cape Breton University had requested about $4 million in additional provincial funding, well in excess of the amount it received in the most recent provincial budget.
The provincial Progressive Conservatives released the documents after filing a request for all of the correspondence between the Department of Labour and Advanced Education and CBU related to its request for increased funding.
In a news release, PC Leader Jamie Baillie accused Minister Labi Kousoulis of misrepresenting the amount of funding the university asked for in advance of the September budget.
“How can university administrators, or even students, trust this government, when it can’t even get its story straight about how it treats them?” Baillie said in the release.
According to the official transcript of debate in the legislature, in response to questioning from Northside-Westmount MLA Eddie Orrell, Kousoulis said on Sept. 29:
“We gave them (CBU) $1 million a year, which was more than what they requested.”
In a phone interview Thursday, acting CBU president Dale Keefe confirmed that the university had requested about $4 million in additional funding, arguing it has been shortchanged annually since the funding formula was revised in 2008.
“We’ve always said that because of the 2008 funding inequities that we’re getting about $6 million less per year and we have had repeated requests into the government,” Keefe said.
The only universities to lose provincial money under the formula change were CBU and Acadia. It was revealed earlier this year that Acadia had received $24.8 million in extra funding above and beyond its grant.
The documents show that when the formula was changed in 2008, CBU’s portion of the provincial funding dropped from 6.99 per cent to 5.6 per cent.
Keefe said CBU is not in danger of not being able to pay its bills but it has had to make difficult decision about its operations over the past several years in order to not find itself in that position.
“What we are concerned with is the fact that because of the funding inequities we need to keep things in order and so we have made a case on numerous occasions that we think we have a fair argument for around $3 million in annual funding increase,” he said.
“It’s not just looking for a handout.”
In the house on Sept. 29, Kousoulis also said the McNeil Liberal government “looked at all the universities under the same lens,” and financial analyses were formed on all universities.
“CBU and Acadia University are not equal, they have very much different financial situations,” Kousoulis said. “CBU’s finances are actually in very good shape; Acadia had some challenges. We helped Acadia meet those challenges, and that was started under the previous NDP government.”
Keefe said they are continuing to speak with deputy ministers from multiple departments, but there has to date not been a commitment for additional funding beyond the extra $1 million.
Among the scenarios CBU has put forward is a request for funding directed to the CBU Art Gallery and Beaton Institute, outlined in a letter to the deputy minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage by CBU vice-president of finance and operations Gordon MacInnis.
“What we had presented to government was some options in terms of how they could direct funding to CBU if they didn’t want to do it simply as a straight up increase to the operating grant, we showed them some areas where we think we play a broader role in the community and how they could help support that,” Keefe said.
Members of the CBU board of governors receive regular updates on the university’s finances at its meetings, Keefe said.