Education funding to be frozen despite ongoing enrolment growth

Thursday’s provincial budget will fund enrolment growth this year, but freeze K-12 operating spending over the next four years, a move that could force per-student investment to plummet if school enrolment continues to grow.

The ministry of education will spend $8.2 billion on services in 2019-20, the same as actual spending in 2018-19, despite the government officials predicting a 2.2 per cent increase in enrolment this year and each year for the next four years.

“Alberta has a spending problem. Our operational spending will come in line with other provinces,” said finance minister Travis Toews at a budget news conference.

Government officials predicted Thursday a 2.2-per-cent increase in enrolment that would likely continue each year.

That means schools will get an additional 15,000 students per year, or 60,000 students over four years, with no extra funding for operating costs.

“(Premier Jason Kenney) lied when he said that they were going to fund enrolment growth, because they are doing no such thing. The education budget is essentially frozen, when there are thousands more students showing up than there were last year,” said NDP education critic Sarah Hoffman.

The Alberta Teacher’s Association was concerned class sizes would grow.

“We’re looking at $200 less per student in the system, so maintaining the budget is a cut to the system and I worry about my colleagues because once again we have a government that is asking teachers to do more with less,” said Jason Schilling, the president of the association.

The government will change the funding formula in September 2020 — developing a new K-12 “Assurance and Funding Framework” with stakeholders.

That initiative follows one recommendation on K-12 education from the Mackinnon Panel, promising a complete review and revision of the funding formula for the new school year to “address enrolment growth, and provide incentives for sharing services and achieving better student outcomes,” the budget read.

The government is pledging a total of $1.8 billion toward new schools and improvements over the next four years, including $123 million for approximately 250 new modular classrooms and $397 million for 25 new and modernized school projects.

Annual funding for new schools and infrastructure projects will start at $526 million in 2019-20, but that capital spending is going to be reduced over the next four years, to $216 million in 2022-23. A majority of the 2019-20 funding — $470 million — is set aside for previously announced projects.

“We will continue to build schools and we will continue to build key infrastructure projects for the province — that’s essential — but we will slow that spend down in a thoughtful and prudent manner,” said Toews.

Specific construction and renewal projects were not announced in the budget.

“At Edmonton Public, we need a new high school in the city’s southeast, so in the coming days I’m hoping to learn that will become a reality for Edmonton Public. Fingers crossed,” said Trisha Estabrooks, chairwoman of the Edmonton Public School Board.

To maintain operating funding at 2018-19 levels for schools for the rest of the school year, three grants the school district relied on are being axed.

The class size initiative, the classroom improvement fund and the school fees grant, were all “reallocated” so that a total of $428 million could go toward instruction costs.