Local schools boards will dip into reserves to pay for an arbitrated teacher salary increase but expect reimbursement from the province in the next budget year.
Alberta Education announced Wednesday an arbitrator had decided teachers should get a 5.99 per cent increase rather than the 4.82 per cent raise the government provided in its last budget.
The discrepancy was a result of a change in the way Statistics Canada calculates the Alberta Weekly Earnings Index, to which teacher salaries are contractually tied. Arbitrator Andy Sims’ nod toward the higher percentage means school boards must pay teachers an extra $23 million for the current school year and $40 million overall, said Education Minister Dave Hancock.
The pay increase is retroactive to September.
The province has no money in its current budget to cover the extra increase so school boards will have to absorb it themselves for the time being, Hancock said.
“Most, if not all school boards will be able to manage this in the context of their operating reserves,” he said.
Hancock will approach the Treasury Board for the money but must wait for approval of the spring budget, which will be introduced next Tuesday and typically takes two months to get through the legislature, he said.
The decision means an extra $341,000 for St. Albert Protestant Schools, said board chair Morag Pansegrau.
“We certainly expect this money back from government,” she said. “As a stop-gap measure we have the reserves to cover it for this year.”
Hancock has asked boards not to cut staff and Pansegrau confirmed the board won’t consider job cuts.
“At this point in time, it’s just business as usual,” she said.
By committing in 2007 to a five-year agreement to tie teacher salary increases to the earnings index, Premier Ed Stelmach has in effect promised to fund the increase ruled by the arbitrator in this case, said Alberta School Boards Association president Heather Welwood.
“School boards look forward to getting this funding so we can honour our contractual agreements with our teachers,” she said in a press release.
Dave Caron, chair of Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools, holds the same view.
“We can deal with it on a very short-term basis but we absolutely have to look to [government] to provide the funding as they promised,” he said.
The increase will cost the division about $320,000 for teachers, he said.
The government isn’t considering legislation to keep the lower increase or seeking compensation from Statistics Canada.
“We agreed to have this arbitrated. We agreed to recommend the result and we’ve done that,” Hancock said. “We don’t have to like the result. We don’t agree with the result.”
Stelmach said in a radio interview Wednesday that his government has accepted the decision and will make necessary adjustments.
