School boards to rely on own piggy-banks amid flat education funding
EDMONTON The province will keep its K-12 education spending levels flat over the next three years, but expects school boards to pitch in an extra $121 million toward operating expenses as enrolment continues to climb.
The total operating cost of K-12 education in Alberta is forecasted to be $8.3 billion in 2020-21, up from $8.2 billion in 2019-20.
But the increase in overall funding doesn’t come from the provincial government — it comes from school boards raiding their own piggy banks.
“Own-source” reserve funding from school jurisdictions will jump about $121 million in 202021, which could include relying on rainy-day funds, facility rentals or even vending machine profits.
Finance Minister Travis Toews said that the government is maintaining education funding.
“We’re not reducing our potential funding and then expecting own-sourced revenue to make up for it. … We do expect that school boards will spend out of their reserves between now and the end of August … but that is not to offset any provincial funding to the school boards,” he said during a news briefing Thursday.
Toews said the government will address enrolment growth with its new funding model, which averages student numbers over three years.
K-12 funding will remain the same over 2020-21, despite the government still predicting 2.2-per-cent enrolment increases this year and each year until 2023.
Base funding — which was essentially frozen at $1.9 billion between 2018-19 and 2019-20 — sits at $1.7 billion in 2020-21.
However, Colin Aitchison, press secretary to Education Minister Adriana Lagrange, said that base funding is a brand new grant under the new funding model, and it funds different services than a similar grant did in the old funding model.
Accredited private schools win under Alberta Education’s new three-year weighted funding formula, introduced on Feb. 18. They will receive $177 million in operating funding, up from $174 million, because of averaged enrolment increases.
Changes under the new funding formula make it more difficult to understand what’s being funded and what isn’t, said NDP Opposition education critic Sarah Hoffman.
“I think you should be able to tell us how you allocated towards different priorities last year, and how much they’re going to be this year. We keep seeing a shell game and we keep seeing semantics,” Hoffman said.
Thursday’s budget projects education property tax rates will rise 3.1 per cent in 2020-21. The tax covered 31 per cent of education operating costs in 2019-20.
Most of the $121 million in “ownsource” funds will come from higher school fees, Hoffman said.
NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley said the government is “playing a lot of games” with education funding.
“First of all, in many cases school boards don’t have reserves, and in other cases those reserves are set aside for important capital upgrading and infrastructure investment,” she said.
A separate $100 million is being newly dispersed directly to school boards, according to budget 2020 estimates.
However, it won’t result in an increase in the overall provincial education funding pot, since it came from eliminated grants, including $26 million in capacity-building initiatives and $70 million from regional collaboration services delivery funding.
Of that $100 million, Edmonton Public Schools is projected to receive an increase of about one per cent — about $12 million — in operational funding for the 202021 school year — to $1.029 billion from $1.017 billion in 2019.
The new funding model averages enrolment numbers over three years.
If more students enrol than predicted, there will be no more midyear funding top-ups — schools will have to wait until the following year.
Trisha Estabrooks, chairwoman of Edmonton Public Schools, said there’s predictability in that model.
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a school board in this province right now that isn’t running low on reserves because of last year’s budget,” Estabrooks said.
Edmonton Public has already dipped into its reserves — roughly $80 million of the $121 million listed in the budget — to make ends meet this school year.
Calgary Public Schools will receive a roughly one-per-cent increase of $13.5 million, to $1.159 billion.
A Thursday statement from the Calgary Board of Education trustees said that with increased enrolment, this will mean a reduction in per-student funding, and that will “have an impact.”
“For 2020-21 enrolment growth is forecast to be approximately 2,300 students, or the equivalent of four large elementary schools,” the statement said.