Opposition Education Critic predicts another 2020 post-secondary budget cut as Advanced Minister of Education urges “fiscal restraint”
By Nikayla Goddard, January 27 2020 —
Deputy Leader of the Official Opposition and Critic for Education and MLA for Edmonton-Glenora Sarah Hoffman predicts more budget cuts will be coming from the government in 2020.
“I expect that there will be,” she stated. “I think that they have been planning on this for a long time.”
On Jan. 15, Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides published a letter to post-secondary institutions impacted by the budget cuts urging them to “exercise fiscal restraint.” With confirmation that a new, performance-based funding model will be introduced to post-secondaries that sees gradually more funding tied to performance outcomes, from 15 per cent this year to 40 per cent in 2022–23 academic year, the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and Hoffman expressed frustration and concern.
“Here we are, in the last quarter of the fiscal year,” Hoffman says, “and the Minister is sending out these sternly worded messages to board chairs asking them to do things that his own premier and the premier’s office staff haven’t done. I think it’s a little bit rich. Especially given the kind of over-the-top spending I’d say that we’ve been seeing out of the premier and his staff.”
Nicolaides’ letter reads, “This past week my office began to receive audited year-end financial statements and interim numbers from our post-secondary institutions demonstrating that expenditures are forecasted to be much higher than anticipated. I have been very clear from the beginning that institutions were to exercise fiscal restraint and prudence when making spending decisions.”
The letter continues by encouraging post-secondaries to freeze spending on all non-essential items such as hiring, travel and hosting, defer all expenditures until Apr. 1, 2020 whenever possible, implement measures to curb “March Madness” spending with the addition that the Advanced Education and Finance & Treasury Board will be closely monitoring spending. The letter also urges post-secondaries to provide monthly reports on actuals to Nicolaides’ department to “ensure that we remain on track.”
Nicolaides’ released an additional statement following the publishing of the letter.
“Over the last decade funding for our post-secondary institutions has grown by 106 per cent, while enrolment has only grown 21 per cent. Despite this massive investment we still have one of the lowest participation rates in the country at 17 per cent. Albertans have had to live within their means, our post-secondary institutions certainly can too.”
The announcement of performance-based funding and Nicolaides’ urging for cuts was met with concern from CAUS. A statement from CAUS criticized the funding model’s “questionable success,” and in turn called on the government to ensure the developing and implementing of metrics for the model are “transparent and open to public scrutiny.”
“This fundamental shift of how funding is allocated is concerning to CAUS, especially given the cuts that have already been implemented by the government,” reads the statement. “It is currently unclear whether funding will remain in the PSE system or be allocated elsewhere if an institution does not meet their minimum PBF targets. The latter would ultimately translate to an additional cut to post-secondary in Alberta and would negatively impact students and institutions in our province.”
CAUS Chair and vice-president external for the University of Calgary’s Students’ Union Sadiya Nazir stated further, “While post-secondary funding in Alberta needs transparency, university students fear this punitive funding model could be detrimental to their education if metrics are not equitable. CAUS again calls on the Government of Alberta and Minister Nicolaides for thoughtful, evidence-based post-secondary institutional funding.”
Hoffman had more to say, stating that universities have responsible boards and there are already enough cuts made to education.
“There’s already a lot of down-loading happening to the university and a lot of entitlements being shown from the premier and his staff, and clearly the minister’s conceding to down-load pressures onto students […] rather than treating them with the respect I think they deserve,” she said.
“I’m glad to see that there are some students who are speaking up and pushing back because that’s the only way that we can really fight against these kinds of really backward policies and attacks on students,” she added. “We’ve already seen them break this many promises this early in their term, I suspect that they will continue to down-load and put more pressures on ordinary folks including post-secondary students.”
Nicolaides says his office is still working through the findings of the MacKinnon Panel Report to see what next steps are.
“We’re currently in the process of having consultations and town halls with Albertans across the province to help inform what Budget 2020 will look like, so we’ll be able to have some more information on that in the coming weeks,” said Nicolaides.