| Despite spending increases in many areas, the provincial government’s latest budget is being widely criticized by a variety of different groups, including arts groups, organizations that work with the developmentally disabled and the Calgary Board of Education.
The Calgary Board of Education questioned where the money for new schools and for necessary maintenance was. The CBE requested funding for 24 new schools, but the province only provided funding for one new school. Ian LaCouvee, spokesperson for the CBE, says it also needs $450 million for maintenance projects, but "what we’re getting from the province will barely make a difference."
"We need such an infusion of capital just to catch up," he explains.
The CBE recently had to close down Marlborough School in northeast Calgary and send 411 students to other schools due to concerns about the structural integrity of the school’s roof.
LaCouvee says Education Minister Gene Zwozdesky has promised to work with school boards on getting new schools built. "He certainly has opened the door for dialogue and we’re certainly anxious to have that dialogue with him," he adds. "We’ll continue to press the issue."
Alberta Teachers Association president Frank Bruseker also criticized the amount of money the province dedicated to school infrastructure.
"We’re falling further behind in terms of repair," he says. "In the late ’90s and the early part of this decade, the government was solely focused on paying down the debt and they’ve done so and good on them, but in doing that they basically ignored the maintenance issues, and the perfect example is Marlborough School."
He adds that the government didn’t allocate enough funding to allow it to meet its own promises on reducing classroom sizes by 2007. The province committed to spending $5.3 billion on K-12 education, a 6.7 per cent increase from last year.
"What that means ultimately is that we will have more students in large classes for a longer period of time and that’s just not good for students," he says.
Arts groups were angered by the small increase in funding for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA), which gives out grants to various arts groups in the province. The AFA received a $3.6 million increase to bring its budget up to $22.6 million from $19 million. However, a provincewide petition had called for the funding to be doubled.
Bob McPhee, CEO of the Calgary Opera, says the small funding increase made him feel "continued disappointment in government and their inability to get their minds around the value that the cultural community brings to the province."
"We believe we’re very much a part of the (Alberta) Advantage," says McPhee. "I think it’s just as deserving as any other area."
Organizations that help the developmentally disabled (people who have mental and, in some cases, physical disabilities) are upset that funding for the Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) office only increased by 2.6 per cent. PDD gives out funding to organizations across the province that work with the developmentally disabled.
Odette Danzer, chair of the Calgary Service Provider Council, which represents 38 different social agencies, says all its organizations have been asked to cut their budgets by 2.38 per cent over the next 11 months because PDD didn’t receive enough additional funding.
"There’s no fat to cut in the system, so services will be reduced for clients or programs will no longer be offered. There are some agencies that are just trying to decide what that means for them and may even shut their doors," she says. "The whole system has been eroded over the years and this latest cut to our budget is crazy. I mean for families that don’t even know what’s happening, it’s causing a lot of angst for them."
Wendy McDonald, president of the Alberta Association of Community Living, describes the situation as "atrocious."
"It’s the most severely marginalized group that don’t necessarily have a voice that this is happening to," she says.
The government committed $509 million to PDD, which was an increase of $13 million over last year, but McDonald says PDD needed another $20 million to keep up with the cost of inflation and the increased numbers of people who need services.
However, University of Calgary Students’ Union president Bryan West was thrilled by the government’s major cash injection into post-secondary education. The province will provide $2.2 billion in funding to post-secondary education – a 19 per cent increase over last year. The new funding includes a tuition freeze for one more year to maintain 2004-05 levels, a six per cent increase in base operating grants to post-secondary institutions and $273 million for new capital projects.
"This is the second year in a row that post-secondary education has come out on top or gotten quite a bit of attention from the government," says West.
However, West says the SU is still awaiting the government’s plans to address affordability in post-secondary education. He says the tuition freeze is only a temporary fix.
The provincial government also increased health care premium subsidies – 140,000 Albertans will benefit from the change. |
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