School boards aghast at latest budget cuts

QUEBEC — School boards across the province will have to sit down with Education Minister Marie Malavoy and her officials to discuss a new, $65.1-million “effort” she wants them to make.

Stressing that the new cuts are only 0.9 per cent of their $7.2-billion budget this year, Malavoy has proposed sitting down by the end of May with three representatives from each of the French and English school boards and three officials from her department to discuss the new cuts, needed to balance the provincial budget. Private schools will also be targeted by the cuts.

“Education is a priority of the government of Quebec,” the minister said.

Josée Bouchard, president of the Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec, said in a telephone interview that she understands the government’s goal to balance its budget, but asked: “Is education really a priority in Quebec?”

“You can’t keep cutting and say that it’s a priority,” added David Birnbaum, executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association.

Birnbaum said the English boards’ operating costs are already lower than those of the provincial government.

“It can’t be done,” Birnbaum said.

Bouchard said cuts to the boards began under the previous Liberal government, which trimmed $500 million over three years.

In its budget last November, the Parti Québécois government announced the end of a $200-million equalization program to compensate the boards for school taxes that were held down to counter a rapid rise in property evaluations across the province following the wave of municipal mergers in 2000.

Bouchard said the boards will be forced to raise school taxes regardless of the new $65.1-million cut.

She said the boards have already “cut to the bone” and the new effort will mean teachers’ assistants, administrative and maintenance jobs will be cut, and services such as late school buses for children doing after-school activities could also be cut.

Malavoy said the education budget for 2013-14 was up by 1.8 per cent, before she announced the 0.9 per cent in new cuts. She said the boards can still go ahead with measures to reduce Quebec’s high school dropout rate, including kindergarten starting at age 4 for children in disadvantaged areas.

The 19 Quebec boards with surplus funds can draw on 32 per cent of their extra cash, she said, and suggested boards share services to save money.

The other 15 boards do not have surpluses, Malavoy said.

Bouchard said the boards are autonomous and a surplus cannot be transferred from one board to another.