EDMONTON - Alberta's Finance Minister has warned Cabinet Ministers that some tough decisions will have to be made in the very short term.
The provincial government has warned school boards its election promise for stable long term education funding now looks "quite bleak," and it can no longer commit to the plan.
According to Jacquie Hansen, President of the Alberta School Boards Association, the comment was made Tuesday evening at a private meeting in Calgary by Minister of Finance Doug Horner, who was joined by Education Minister Jeff Johnson.
The news is quite a surprise and will present a challenge for school boards, said Hansen.
"We were surprised, and certainly disappointed that we're finding out that the situation of the province's finances is going to perhaps impact our ability to have long-term sustainable funding," explains Hansen.
During the spring election, Premier Alison Redford promised to increase education grant funding by one per cent next year, and two per cent in the second and third years.
"When we got that commitment from the Premier at election time, we were able to start planning out the next three years with the funds that we knew were coming in," she adds. "At the same time, we were hoping for a long term agreement with the tripartied talks, those have broken down now."
"What this is saying is that the government won't commit to fund, that it chooses not to fund, or that it lacks the political will to fund," says Dennis Theobald of the Alberta Teachers Association. "I'm astounded at that."
"K to 12 education is part of the core business of this government, and it has an obligation to insure that funding is adequate to that purpose," adds Theobald.
And education funding could be just the start.
"When I presented my report to cabinet yesterday, we made it very clear to cabinet ministers that there's going to have to be some very tough decisions made in the very short term," said Finance Minister Doug Horner.
"Nothing should be taken off the table, and anything that may have been on the table might not be there tomorrow."
"We have to make those kinds of decisions for all our departments, not just education or health. Every cabinet minister has to take a strong look at restraining spending growth in his department," added Horner.
It even includes the promise to balance the operating budget in 2013.
"We've said all along that in the election they misrepresented the financial position of the province," said NDP leader Brian Mason. "They made billions of dollars of extravagant promises that frankly I don't think they ever intended to keep."
The PCs say the biggest contributing factor is the widening differential between the price of oil in North America and the world versus the price Alberta receives for a barrel of its oil.
"Our revenue picture has changed. We're now mostly oil sands bitumen royalty revenue," explained Horner.
In her year-end interview with Global News last week, Premier Alison Redford addressed the issue of spending.
"We've introduced results based budgeting that still allows us within the context of the services we deliver to make sure health care is still accessible, education is accessible," she said last Wednesday. "But we're not going to have tremendous increases in the next couple years. We know that from an operating perspective that we can continue to balance the budget. Our challenge is to do more than that."
She went on to say, "Because of the work that we're doing around results based budgeting, where we're actually taking a look at the outcomes we're trying to achieve and the services Albertans need, that we're going be absolutely fine. It means the solution to everything is not to spend more money."
With files from Vassy Kapelos
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2013.