Saskatchewan school divisions will be cutting over 100 positions in schools when the bell rings in the next school year.
Dr. Shawn Davidson, the President of the Saskatchewan Schools Board Association, said this is not surprising but very unfortunate.
“I would characterize it as not surprising. If I think back to budget day back in late March, I was asked these questions about what we thought. At that time, my response was that school divisions across the province are going to have to make difficult decisions in response to the budget that we were handed.”
Davidson said that the budget did not meet the inflationary pressures of school divisions.
“There was no allowance for other inflationary pressures, which are really significant. Things like fuel costs for buses, heating, insurance costs, electricity, the list goes on and on,” he said. “We are facing the same inflationary pressures as other members of the public and other businesses or organizations. There is just no funding for us to meet those challenges or to pay those expenses. Divisions have to look at places where they cut in order to pay their bills.”
Premier Scott Moe commented that “in general” reserves have been growing the past three or four years “across the school divisions” and that “We would ask them to look at them in the short term.”
Davidson said while some school divisions might be able to dip into reserves, others might not.
“I think some of the Premier’s comments, unfortunately, shed light on a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the government about school divisions’ reserves.”
“The reserves that he referred to as growing in the last couple of years are really associated with the COVID pandemic. At the time that we went into the lockdown, divisions did save some very significant money,” he said. “The government actually kept those funds in place but required division to designate them for more one-time projects.”
Davidson said that any money school divisions saved or could put into their reserves was restricted to be used for infrastructure or capital projects.
“It certainly appears that there is more money on the books of school divisions as of August 31, 2021, and that’s true, but there are reasons why that happened. We are certainly going to see a little bit different picture come the August 31, 2022, financial statement.”
As for the impact that school divisions will see, Davidson said that all 27 school divisions would budget differently, but significant cuts are a long-time coming.
“This year is the culmination of five years of difficult budgets for boards,” he said. “If we look back to 2017 when boards were handed a 55 million dollars cut, there were a lot of difficult decisions that were made and ever since that time, that funding has never been restored, and we’ve actually seen our per-student funding; continue to be eroded.”
Davidson said that school divisions have already cut everything else.
“They have already efficiency themselves to death and found cuts, and found cuts, and you can only cut so far. Boards have done a masterful job of keeping cuts away from the classroom in the last five years; we’ve just reached a point where there are just no more cuts to be made to some of those other areas.”
He acknowledged that parents have a right to be concerned about their kid’s education and the status of education in the province.
“It’s time for us to have a conversation about education in Saskatchewan. It’s time for us to talk about how we are funded and look at some options,” he said. “We want to see our government see education as an investment, not an expense. This is investing in our youth, in our future, and we just want to see the government make that a priority year after year.”
Official Opposition Education Critic Matt Love said that Premier Moe and Minister Duncan should retract their comments that school layoffs and lunchroom fees could be avoided if only school boards budgeted their reserves better.
“Premier Scott Moe and Minister Dustin Duncan need to take responsibility. Responsibility for cutting hundreds of teachers and student support workers due to this year’s budget. Responsibility for passing lunchroom fees onto families, families that are already struggling in an affordability crisis and responsibility for making all of this out to be the fault of school divisions,” Love stated.
“Scott Moe has the audacity to jet set to New York during an affordability crisis and then stand in an airport blaming school boards for not balancing their books,” he said. “Scott Moe is starving our school boards of funding and then turning around and scolding them for being broke. All of this from a Premier who has never balanced the books.”
The Sask. NDP is asking the Government to commit to an emergency funding package of $50 million for school divisions struggling with rising inflationary costs and to commit to adequate, predictable, and stable funding that covers inflationary costs moving forward.
