Saskatchewan Prime Minister Scott Mo says school departments should not pass on their expenses to county parents before using up their cash. Photo by Michelle Berg / Saskatoon StarPhoenix
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Saskatchewan Prime Minister Scott Moe said school departments should not introduce new tuition fees for parents, arguing that they should draw on cash reserves, some of which were formed during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. .
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Moe’s criticism comes days after the Saskatoon Public Schools Board approved a budget of $ 100 per student to oversee lunch hours, a measure the council said was necessary due to years of inadequate provincial funding. Regina Public Schools has been charging such a noon fee since 2018. Regina Catholic Schools is also approving a budget that includes a new supervision fee for noon. These departments and others plan to cut services, something the Saskatchewan School Board Association says is a consequence of the incompatibility of provincial cash flows with new spending and inflation. Moe argued, however, that some departments have significant cash reserves in which they would have to dig deeper before passing the cost on to parents. “Before a school department is going to charge parents extra dollars for lunch, they should definitely consider using some of the reserves used in recent years as opposed to sending invoices to parents,” Moe said. said at Saskatoon Airport on Friday shortly after returning from a commercial mission to the United States. Moe noted that many departments saw an increase in these reserves during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the federal and provincial governments poured more cash into schools. “I would agree that it is not sustainable,” Moe said when asked about how it would work in the long run. “But if they are considering parenting, they should consider using reserves before doing so.”
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“I do not think you can say that parental pricing is also a long-term solution.”
“$ 3.49 per student”
Saskatchewan School Council President Sean Davidson said Moe’s comments reflected a “fundamental misunderstanding” about the province’s schools’ reserves and budget. “While it is true that some school departments have cash reserves. .. not every division has them. “And the Saskatoon public happens to be one of the divisions that has already withdrawn its stocks in recent years.” “They do not have this luxury. There are paintings that do it. “These councils do a lot of just that.” Davidson said plenty of government spending in the early to mid-2010s helped school departments generally raise some savings. But in the last six to seven years, he said, new spending has not kept pace with inflation and rising costs. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, for example, announced Friday that they are running a $ 3 million operating cost deficit. While paper spending is on the rise, this section says almost all of the extra $ 3.85 million it received will be used to raise teachers’ salaries under a district-mediated collective bargaining agreement. He said the change in funding per student was just 0.03 percent, or about $ 3.49 per student. “With a provincial increase in funding that does not recognize significant inflation increases, the status quo budget was not feasible this year,” said a package of agenda items for a meeting next week. The department refused to release the full operating budget prior to this meeting.
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Matt Love, Saskatchewan’s NDP critic for education, added that some reserves could not be used to cover operating expenses. Saskatoon public schools, for example, had total reserves of just $ 10 million as of August 31, 2021. But less than $ 4 million of that was a significant surplus that could be used for operating expenses. The board faced a $ 4.5 million deficit this year. “The way I interpret this is that they avoid being accountable for their own education underfunding,” Love told the government. “They point the finger at schools.” [email protected]/zakvescera The news seems to be flying at us faster and faster. From COVID-19 updates to politics and crime and everything in between, it can be hard to keep up. With that in mind, Saskatoon StarPhoenix has created an evening headline newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox to make sure you are up to date with the most important news of the day. Click here to register.
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