Red ink is on the way for St. Albert's Catholic school division as the board faces a $1.7-million shortfall heading into the next school year.
Come September the division will be on the hook for an extra $1.4 million in teacher salaries that weren't covered in last month's provincial budget. It will also lose about $1.7 million to a reformulation of the class size initiative, said board chair Dave Caron.
The division has about $1.4 million in reserves so is looking at running a deficit of $1.7 million next year, Caron said.
"It puts us in a very uncertain position, an uncomfortable position," Caron said. "It's disappointing because previous commitments are not being honoured now."
He was referring to an agreement reached in the fall of 2007 when the province signed a five-year agreement that tied teacher salary increases to the Alberta Weekly Earnings Index. The spring budget didn't include an extra three per cent for school boards, even though that's the raise teachers are looking at in September.
St. Albert MLA Ken Allred wasn't sure that school boards are interpreting the agreement accurately and urged the school division to look for internal fixes.
"I think they've really got to look at their own operations just like everybody else is doing and see where they can achieve some savings," Allred said.
At a meeting with 51 of the province's 62 school boards on Monday, Education Minister Dave Hancock announced that the Treasury Board had come through with an extra $23 million to cover teacher salary increases for the current school year. Last year the government funded an increase of 4.82 per cent, sparking a lengthy dispute that ended in February when an arbitrator ruled that teachers were entitled to 5.99 per cent.
Hancock has said he won't be seeking more money to cover the three per cent increase teachers are due next year.
On Monday Hancock urged boards to resist cutting teachers and submit deficit budgets for his approval instead. That's what the Catholic board intends to do.
"We're making that leap of faith for now but with that comes a huge challenge for them to step up and cover those deficits," Caron said.
"We don't like creating deficits because they're dangerous. Tomorrow's students pay for today."
The board's $1.7 million deficit represents almost three per cent of its budget and would require laying off about five per cent of its teaching staff to handle it internally, Caron said.
The board will discuss its budget at its next public meeting on April 19.
Sturgeon, Protestant boards to dip into reserves
St. Albert Protestant Schools will have to dip into its reserves next year as well to cover off a shortfall that will exceed $1 million, said board chair Morag Pansegrau. The board will get an update and address its budget in April, she said.
"All we know is it's going to be tight next year," she said.
The Sturgeon School Division will also be looking at a shortfall of more than $1 million unless the government provides more money, said superintendent MichÈle Dick.
The division expects to have about $2 million in reserves when the next school year starts and is hoping to keep its teaching levels intact, Dick said.
"We're going to absorb any of those additional costs … the best we can, but this is a dire situation. People need to be paying attention," she said.
