Last week’s announcement that school districts across the province will be getting back the money they slashed from administrative budgets sounded like good news, at least at first blush. But it didn’t take long for the familiar odour of a looming election campaign to waft into the story, bringing with it a decidedly rotten tinge.
Suspicious minds might first have been put on alert when Education Minister Mike Bernier announced that the province is returning $25 million to districts throughout the province, saved following orders to reduce administrative costs. No restrictions would be placed on how the money is to be spent, he said. But what was at first believed to be a one-time injection of cash turned out to have some baggage.
Two Okanagan Liberal MLAs took advantage of the announcement to make hay while the political sun shined brightly, airing in public their personal beliefs that the money should be used to keep schools in their own neighbourhoods open. Can you smell electioneering?
Typically, MLAs are pretty quiet about decisions made by elected school trustees, respecting the fact that they are directly responsible to their own constituents. But suddenly here were a couple of Liberal members yammering away on CBC Radio, speaking as though the “return” of savings should be used to keep specific schools open. They didn’t have very good answers when reminded that the dollars involved weren’t sufficient.
It took a day or two before a followup announcement said that the forced savings would be returned on an annual, not one-time, basis, further fueling suspicions that a government that doesn’t show much love for public education — or its strong union ties — is gearing up for an election and working to reel in perception that (public) education is being underfunded.
The Sunshine Coast school district took a slightly jaundiced view of its own “rebate”, which came to $182,000.
“We balanced our budget with difficulty even though we have had a small increase in students in the past year,” it said in a letter to Bernier. “This is due in large part to the requirement of the Ministry of Education that we send back administrative savings in the amount of $182,072.”
The district’s chair, Betty Baxter, pointed out that the province has downloaded $1,368,031 in administrative costs to her district in the last decade.
And if you question that argument, consider that only a few weeks earlier, the province was dealing with criticism that a mandatory technology upgrade forced upon school districts was going to cost $24 million. Which school districts have to pay for.
So there we are. With one hand the province hands back $25 million to school districts that had just cut from their budgets, telling them to spend it as they please, but also that it had better end up in classrooms. That same government’s own members lean on school boards to keep schools in their constituencies open. And, at the same time, the Ministry of Education is going to need almost the same amount of money back to pay for new technology.
Once again I am reminded of W.O. Mitchell’s old radio show, Jake and the Kid, in which hired hand Jake gives a lesson in economics to a youngster. He speaks of a fellow getting an unanticipated windfall of $400 during the Great Depression. He uses the cash to pay a bill at a local business, which in turn pays a debt to another business, which in turn does the same thing. The money rolled through the community for months.
“I’ll tell you, kid, that winter we lived on that money,” Jake said.
Think of that $25 million compared to the $400 Jake spoke of. It didn’t just appear out of the blue. It was in school district budgets until trustees and administrations were forced to slash costs. Now it is coming back to them, in the same amount. And MLAs want to keep their schools open. And the province is going to take back the money (at least once) to pay for technology.
Somehow I don’t think trustees of the future will be telling their grandchildren that a 2016 announcement of provincial government largesse saved the public school system. But might help get some Liberals reelected.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.
