The government’s refusal to properly fund students and scrapping of the mid-year adjustment will now result in cuts to staff in Regina schools, and the NDP wants a change to the education funding formula before September to solve the problem.

The Regina Public School Board is being forced to cut $2.55 million in positions as part of its efforts to overcome a $6.1 million funding shortfall, the board said late last week. The schools will also have more Grade 1 students walk to school instead of being bussed and eliminate some noon-hour supervision. The Saskatoon-area Prairie Spirit School Division announced more than 40 job cuts a week ago, including more than 21 educational assistants, eight teacher librarians, positions in special education and more.

“Saskatchewan has had a decade of resource wealth,” said NDP deputy leader Trent Wotherspoon. “We could and absolutely should have one of the strongest school systems in the country. But this government didn’t invest properly in students and classrooms. Whether it’s crumbling schools that aren’t getting any repair dollars, overcrowded classrooms and schools that can’t afford supports for students like anti-bullying programs, enough educational assistants or English as an additional language supports, it’s the students that lose when the government has misplaced spending priorities.”

The NDP is calling for immediate changes to the funding formula, to reverse its $18 million cut caused by its scrapping of the mid-year funding adjustment, and to commit that enrolment growth at mid-year will be fully funded.

The provincial government will spend more than ever before, but classrooms are being shortchanged because of the government’s misplaced priorities. Wotherspoon said more teachers and educational assistants could easily be possible by cutting government waste and pet projects. For example, he pointed out, this year the government is mandating a roll-out of the controversial John Black Lean program in education. He also pointed out that millions have already gone to P3 consultants, unsuccessful bidders and negotiators as a part of the more-expensive and lengthier P3-rent-a-school scheme. And, the province shoveled more than $120 million to consultants last year, an increase of 228 per cent.

“Making common sense decisions would save millions – millions that could be spent on more teachers, more educational assistants and addressing bullying in schools,” said Wotherspoon. “This is about giving kids the best education possible, but it’s also about giving Saskatchewan the strongest future.”

The NDP plan for education includes capping class sizes starting with early years and increasing the number of educational assistants. The NDP has also tabled an anti-bullying bill for schools that establishes each students’ right to raise bullying and cyberbullying with their school principal, their right to have a disability accommodated and the right to request and form a gender and sexuality alliance (GSA, also known as a gay straight alliance) in their school.

P3 rental schemes have worked poorly and cost more in other provinces. The NDP wants the Sask. Party to turn away from its P3 schools scheme before the contract is signed, and instead start building schools in a cost-effective and transparent way.

The NDP has previously criticized the government’s plan to use a massive, bundled P3 to have private corporations build and operate schools in Saskatchewan. Now, with the government just about to sign the contract and evidence from other jurisdictions’ bad P3 experiences piling up, the Opposition says it’s urgent that the plan changes before the province is locked in to a 30-year bad deal.

“Instead of awarding a private conglomerate from another province or country a lucrative deal to build and manage our children’s schools for the next 30 years, let’s learn from other provinces and just do this the straightforward way,” said NDP deputy leader Trent Wotherspoon. “If we decide to own and maintain our schools ourselves – as we always have – we save money, we get building immediately and our communities will get all the access to the schools they’ve always had.

“The delays have already been too long, and the consulting and bidding fees we’ve paid are already piling up. The government needs to stop its rent-a-school plan before it hands out a multi-million-dollar contract to an out-of-province and out-of-country conglomerate.”

In Nova Scotia, a Conservative government abandoned that province’s P3 schools plan after finding the new schools were costing $2 million more, each, than a straightforward build.

In Alberta, the P3 schools plan was scrapped by the previous government because it failed to be competitive enough to guarantee value. Alberta parents and school boards also found troubling community concerns with P3 schools, including groups like sports teams or children’s groups not having access to the buildings after school.

In Ontario, the Auditor General said 74 P3 projects in that province, combined, cost taxpayers an extra $8 billion.

In B.C., P3 Crown Partnerships B.C. has been embroiled in conflict of interest scandals – but, despite that, the Sask. Party government is giving it $5.6 million in consulting fees in its P3 push.

“Other provinces have gone down this road and turned back,” said Wotherspoon. “Why is the Sask. Party trying the same costly experiment?”

He added that the bundled P3 approach – hiring one massive conglomerate to build nine cookie-cutter schools on a single contract – will shut out the local construction industries.

“The value, dollar for dollar, just isn’t there in a P3,” he said. “And the value to the local economy certainly isn’t there when you have a corporation from another province or country being paid to build and operate our schools.”

Both Ontario’s Auditor General and Saskatchewan’s Provincial Auditor found that the so-called value-for-money audits being used to justify P3s are based largely on unsubstantiated assumptions. Most notably, to make the straightforward method of a provincial build look bad, it inappropriately assigns a “risk” amount five or six times greater than the amount budgeted for the P3 method.

“After a decade of resource wealth, it’s shameful that the Sask. Party hasn’t built the schools our communities need,” said Wotherspoon. “The fact is, paying to get shovels the ground now and owning and operating our schools ourselves is faster and less costly than a complex scheme of for-profit financers and management corporations.”

The winning bidder on a bundle of P3 schools awarded Monday is a massive international conglomerate from Milwaukee, Vancouver, Ontario, Saskatoon and Alberta.

The Sask. party awarded two massive P3 schools contracts Monday – to the same multi-national conglomerate – so seven non-Saskatchewan corporations and two Saskatchewan companies will take a profit from Saskatchewan children’s schools.

A large firm headquartered in Milwaukee will be responsible for maintenance and operations of Saskatchewan schools on two long-term contracts, likely about 30 years. P3 deals are costly complex ownership and financing schemes in which the province essentially rents its own schools from management conglomerates. In P3 deals, one or several large for-profit corporations put up the capital in exchange for a hefty profit and massive interest fees.

Corporations comprising the conglomerate, which calls itself Joint Use Mutual Partnership (JUMP), include:

• from British Columbia, Concert Infrastructure;
• from Ontario, Bird capital;
• from Ontario, Bird Design-Build;
• from Saskatoon, Wright Construction;
• from Alberta, GEC Architecture;
• from Saskatoon, Kindrachuk Agrey Architecture; and
• from Milwaukee, Johnson Controls and its Canadian subsidiary offices.

“For private corporations to make a profit off operating our children’s schools on a 30-year contract, that money comes right from families in the form of more property taxes,” said NDP deputy leader Trent Wotherspoon. “And, to add insult to injury, the proponents aren’t even from Saskatchewan – the profits go directly to British Columbia, Ontario and out of country. Plus, the local construction industry is largely shut out of building our community’s schools.”

The NDP has been critical of the use of a P3 rent-to-own scheme in education, noting that it typically costs more; that local community access is restricted or made very expensive by the management company; and that the local economy, including the local construction industry, doesn’t benefit as they should from large-scale construction projects.