Opposition says Sask. budget shortchanging students

A week after the Saskatchewan government announced its budget, the government and opposition parties clashed in the legislature over the funding for schools in the province.

• Sask. Education Minister says schools need to start finding savings

The opposition NDP is decrying the cuts that schools will have to make to be able to stay in the black based on government money, but the Saskatchewan Party government notesit has once again increased the operating grants for schools.

Education Minister Don Morgan says the government is aware the budget is tighter than in past years, butschools need to find ways to make it work.

"This has been a challenging budget for the province, we know it's going to be a challenging budget for the divisions as well," he said. "We look to them to carefully use their resources, move people around and do things so that they can do the best they can for the students in this province."

Morgan said he'll sit down in Saskatoon with board chairs and directors next week to talk about how they're dealing with the new numbers, however, there won't be more money on the table.

"We projected forward and did our calculations based on what we think the September enrolments were, so we're not anticipating doing a mid-year adjustment. This is the budget."

NDP concerned about cuts in the classroom

The NDP'seducation critic,Carla Beck, says she's concerned the tighterschool budgets will result in fewer front-line staff in classrooms.

"Guidance counselors, teaching assistants, front-line staff, increasing class sizesthose are the implications that we were fearful were going to come out of this budget, and the miniscule increase to the operating side," she said."As the week has rolled on, we've seen more and more divisions confirming unfortunately that is the case, there will be impacts on the front line in the classrooms."

"I think it's going to be a really difficult year in classrooms and that's unfortunate," she added.

Divisions working on staying in the black

One school division making up for an estimatedshortfall of around one million dollarsis Prairie South inMoose Jaw. Its Education Director, Tony Baldwin, says it's making that money back in many areas, including employing fewer counselors and support staff,administrative cuts, and postponing a computer purchase for another year.

Baldwin says his division's boardcommitted to maintaining teacher staffing and adding new educational assistants for next year, so they had to find their money outside of those categories in the staff room.

"It's a difficult time for the school division," Baldwin said about finding money and making job cuts, such as going from a team of six counsellors to four. "It's tough work when people are when their livelihood is affected.But I think that we've got it in place so that we'll be able to move forward in a way that's good for kids and good for schools."

He says his board has worked hard to find efficiencies for years, but the division wants to continue focusing on children first, rather than money.