Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
With all that is occurring federally, the election call and the ongoing issues with the United States, the provincial budget announced last week can easily get pushed to the back of people’s minds. However, that does not lessen the fact that it was released. The budget promised to balance the books on an estimated $21 billion of spending. The current fiscal year’s budget, which wraps up at the end of the month, is set to record a $660-million deficit. As many other media sources have reported, the Ministry of Finance is banking on a rising population, growing oil and uranium revenues and stabilized markets for potash.
The budget announced a reduction to all education property tax mill rates to absorb the increase in property assessment values in each property class effective January 1, 2025. The property tax mill rates for the four property classes will be reduced as follows: Agriculture: changed to 1.07 (from 1.42); Residential: changed to 4.27 (from 4.54); Commercial/Industrial: changed to 6.37 (from 6.86); and Resource: changed to 7.49 (from 9.88)
The 2025-26 provincial budget for Education spending is set at $4.428 billion, yet the forecasted spending for 2024-25 is $4.454 billion. So, while the government says they are increasing spending, the increase is from the budgeted amount in the 2024-25 provincial budget, not the actual dollars spent. Using the actual spending, the budget earmarks $26.7 million less and is also said to account for $130 million to fund the new teacher bargaining agreement and to address classroom complexity. This effectively cuts resources from an already strained system.
“We did not see a budget that will fix the crisis in education,” said Karla Sastaunik, Chairperson of CUPE Saskatchewan’s Education Workers’ Steering Committee. “Education support workers have been asked to do more with less for years, and we are at a breaking point.”
Sastaunik also warned that the province is failing its most vulnerable students, particularly Indigenous students who will be directly impacted by the loss of federal funding from Jordan’s Principle. “Without sustainable funding, these students will fall even further behind, and that is simply unacceptable,” she said. “Yet, we heard nothing about this matter from the government today.”
CUPE education workers are also concerned about the government’s failure to address violence in schools. “Our members are on the frontlines experiencing violence in schools on a regular basis because of chronic underfunding and cuts to staffing levels. But again, there was no mention of violence in classrooms in the Finance Minister’s speech,” said Sastaunik.
Education support workers play a vital role in Saskatchewan’s education system. They work directly with students who require intensive supports and are committed to ensuring all students can reach their full potential. “We need more than teachers in the classroom for all students to succeed,” said Sastaunik. “CUPE members are proud to support an inclusive education system, but this budget does not provide the resources needed to make that happen.”
In February, the Saskatoon Public School Board announced it was in a position of having to lay off eighty EAs because the Division had not yet received previously applied for funding through Jordan’s Principle. A backlog of applications for funding through the program continues to exist, despite the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal having ordered Canada in 2016 to properly implement Jordan’s Principle, after ignoring it for years. This entrenched it as a legal obligation of the federal government. As of March 1st, the Saskatoon Public School Board began advertising for full-time, part-time, and casual educational assistants.
Jordan’s Principle is a federal program which is supposed to prevent jurisdictional bickering. According to the Government of Canada website, Jordan’s Principle makes sure all First Nations children living in Canada can access the products, services and supports they need when they need them. When “a government service is available to all other children, but a jurisdictional dispute regarding services to a First Nations child arises between Canada, a province, a territory, or between government departments.” The government department of first contact is to pay for the service and then seek reimbursement from the other government or department after the child has received the service. Supports to school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to provincial school boards or other existing provincial and federally funded programs.
STF president, Samantha Becotte affirmed, “This is a Government of Saskatchewan responsibility. We shouldn’t be looking at grants or charitable foundations to subsidize what is a responsibility of the provincial government.”
In a January email to CBC relating to the Saskatoon Public School Board’s call for more funding for supports for students with intensive needs, the Ministry of Education said, “School divisions have the responsibility to make staffing and programming decisions within their allocated budget to address the needs of all their students to ensure that all students have equal access to, and benefit from, the provincial education program in an inclusive educational setting.”
According to the Government of Saskatchewan estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, the K-12 School Operating Expense represented 13.5 percent of total government Budgetary Expense in 2018-19, but in 2022-23 it only made up of 11.7 percent, and 11.3 percent in 2023-24 (Government of Saskatchewan 2023-24 Estimates), even though student population is growing, and needs are more diverse. Commencing January 2018, education property tax is redirected from school divisions to the provincial General Revenue Fund. The school operating allocation includes appropriation to reflect the transfer of education property tax amounts to the GRF.
In 2015-16, Saskatchewan had the highest school board operational spending per student in the country, according to Statistics Canada. However, by 2020-21, it had fallen to the eighth place, representing a reduction of 16.5 percent, after adjustment for inflation. (Education-in-Saskatchewan-Facts-and-Statistics, 20231219, PDF, www.stf.sk.ca)
Provincial Education Ministers repeatedly promise that the government “will continue to ensure school divisions have the funding they need to support students, staff and their school communities.”
