Alberta’s provincial budget was tabled yesterday, leaving many municipalities, organizations and school divisions awaiting further details about what is in store for 2024.
Lethbridge School Division says the budget announcement provides some overall direction, in terms of what school divisions might expect for 2024/2025.
Christine Lee, the Division’s associate superintendent of Business and Operations says budget day is always an exciting day. “But for school divisions, the most important information we receive comes in the form of our funding profiles.”
“Those will be delivered sometime in March. Once we have an opportunity to analyze our funding profile, we will have a much better idea of what our budget looks like for next year,” adds Lee.
Board Chair Allison Purcell notes the Board will also need time to analyze the numbers. “But there are several potential positives with the budget.”
“We are encouraged to see the government is addressing enrolment growth and is committed to putting more teachers in our classrooms, along with increased learning supports for some of our most vulnerable students,” Purcell adds, referring to the $1.2 billion the government is investing over the next three years to address record enrolment growth.
Thursday’s announcement included $2.1 billion the government is investing to build and modernize schools and construct modular classrooms, according to the Lethbridge School Division.
Like many in the community, inflationary cost pressures have had an impact on operations, says Lee. “Some of these inflationary pressures included increased costs for services and resources, employee health benefits, utilities, transportation and insurance.”
Alberta Teachers’ Association President Jason Schilling says last year, Albertans saw what a pre-election budget looked like and yesterday, Albertans saw what a post-election budget looks like.
“We set out a three-part test to judge this budget. Does it fund enrolment growth? Not fully. Does it fund inflation? No. Does it add extra funding to repair damages from years of underfunding? No. The budget will see our students funded the least in all of Canada,” says Schilling.
Schilling adds, while public education will see a 4.4 per cent increase, private schools will get 13.5 per cent more next year.
The ATA will provide further analysis of the education budget and unveil a campaign to draw attention to the impacts of chronic underfunding in Alberta schools on Tuesday.