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Alberta Education wins back some say over infrastructure spending

The month of September was marked by a flurry of activity by the provincial government in the area of school infrastructure.

Perhaps the most important development was the approval on September 8 of an Order in Council making the School Facilities Infrastructure Program the joint responsibility of the minister of Infrastructure and Transportation and the minister of Education. Similar changes were made in the management of facilities serving health and advanced education.

Previously, control over the province’s public infrastructure, regardless of type or function, was the exclusive responsibility of Infrastructure and Transportation.

Some media pundits suggested that the whole reorganization of responsibilities for infrastructure amounted to a smack-down of Infrastructure Minister Lyle Oberg’s ambitions to succeed Ralph Klein in the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party.

The reality, however, is probably less dramatic. With oil and gas prices hitting record highs, the province is running a massive surplus and infrastructure is one of the few places the government can put excess funds without raising expectations for increased program spending or deep tax cuts. With so much money at stake, there is a strong incentive for frontline ministries to ensure that decisions concerning infrastructure reflected their needs and objectives.

In the long run, this change in governance will likely be good news for students and teachers. Although it will be a challenge for Alberta Education to find within the department the resources needed to manage its new responsibilities for infrastructure, the capacity of the department to ensure that infrastructure decisions reflect and enable sound education policy will be greatly enhanced.

For example, some jurisdictions have reported that efforts to reduce class size are impeded by a lack of appropriate classroom space. As well, rules and guidelines imposed by infrastructure have forced school boards to "rationalize" the use of school buildings before being able to justify new construction. In many jurisdictions, such rationalization has meant closing schools that serve older neighbourhoods or smaller communities. A school infrastructure program that is driven primarily by educational considerations would have some promise of addressing these issues in a way that respects the needs of students, teachers and communities.

Less than two weeks after making the governance changes, the provincial government made a series of infrastructure spending announcements, including the expenditure from its "unanticipated surplus" of $207 million for school facilities. School boards across the province will receive funding for priority improvement and construction projects. According to the government, the announcement "is part of a first phase of ongoing provincial investment in school infrastructure."

ATA President Frank Bruseker welcomed the government’s decision to invest in school infrastructure, but was careful to put the spending into context. "The province has amassed a huge infrastructure deficit over the last decade. Schools have not been built when and where they were needed and existing facilities have been allowed to slowly deteriorate," said Bruseker. "While I am pleased that the government will be using some of the surplus to begin correcting these serious problems, we still have a long way to go."

As an example, Bruseker cited Calgary, where the public school board alone indicated that it needs 11 new schools and 2 school modernizations to accommodate students living in rapidly growing communities in Canada’s most rapidly expanding city. The public board will receive $13.5 million in new infrastructure dollars to finance the construction of the Shawnessy/Somerset Middle School, which will accommodate 900 students in Grades 5–9. The Calgary Catholic board, which has even higher utilization rates than the public board, will also receive $10.8 million to construct an elementary/junior high school for 400 students in the city’s Tuscany community. "Clearly, the construction of two new schools in Calgary is a step in the right direction, but it is only one very small step" said Bruseker.

Bruseker concluded with an expression of guarded optimism. "I continue to hope that this will be the beginning of a much more extensive and ambitious construction and renovation program, one that will see meeting students’ educational needs as the first priority for education infrastructure spending."

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