Notley announces education funding, will keep Young Offenders Centre open

Alberta’s NDP government is making good on a couple of campaign promises by reversing planned cuts by the previous PC regime.

Premier Rachel Notley announced Thursday at McDougall Centre that the government is allocating $103 million in funding to the education budget as well as keeping Calgary’s Young Offenders Centre open.

Notley and her cabinet have been meeting for two days in Calgary getting briefed on a number of subjects, but she said the funding announcement was a priority because school boards have to get their budgets in by June 30th.

“This money funds enrollment pressures and it reverses the cuts to what was inappropriately referred to as non-teaching resources,” she said.

Notley said the interim supply motion that will be tabled in the Legislature in June will explain where exactly the funding is coming from.

As for the centre, it will cost $3 million a year to operate.

“We fundamentally disagree with the idea that young offenders from Calgary and southern Alberta should be housed in a facility in Edmonton far away from their families, in our view it was simply wrong to close this facility and so we won’t do it,” she said.

The premier said her cabinet is well into the supply motion and she was asked about her plans for the deficit now that these two announcements have been made.

“Those are I think issues that are more appropriately considered in the overall discussion of the budget, something which I must admit, after three days on the job with my cabinet, we have not finalized,” she said.

The new provincial budget will be tabled in the fall.

Wildrose Shadow Education Minister Mark Smith said it’s critical to keep a watchful eye on the money and make sure it goes to students and teachers.

“We hope (Education) Minister David Eggen will soon make clear where the dollars for this funding will come from, and that we can start to focus on other important challenges our education system is facing.” Smith said in a statement.

Alberta School Boards Association President Helen Clease said it’s a great day for Alberta.

“The last budget, I would refer to it as a stab in the heart, it was one of the toughest budgets,” she said. “We were sort of left with that and the fact that this government recognized how difficult that budget was going to be and basically restored the funding to at least where we were last year, I think shows great intent to work with us.”