EDMONTON — The Alberta government says it is giving the province’s teachers their bargained wage hike starting Sept. 1 because of “better than expected” fiscal results.
Education Minister Dave Hancock posted the news on his website Wednesday and says it was also distributed to the education sector.
He says “government has determined that it is prudent to provide funding for the 2.92 per cent increase in this year, rather than over a longer term period.”
Hancock says the funding for an increase in teachers’ salaries will be effective Sept. 1.
The education minister also says the increase will be applied to the base student and class size initiative grants.
The five-year contract with Alberta teachers was considered ground-breaking when it was signed in 2007.
It guaranteed five years of labour peace and a payout of the teachers’ $2.1 billion pension liability in exchange for a new formula to determine wage hikes.
The deal ties salary increases to the average weekly earnings index compiled annually by Statistics Canada.
But things went off the rails last year when Statistics Canada changed its method for calculating this index.
Hancock fought for a return to the old formula, but in February an arbitrator ruled that teachers’ wages should be set using the new method of calculation.
“I want to be absolutely clear: this money is for teacher and support staff salaries, not for any other purpose,” Hancock says.
“While I recognize that there were adjustments in the class size funding formula, I expect that boards will sustain or improve their progress in meeting class size guidelines as a result of this funding.”
Two weeks ago, Finance Minister Ted Morton announced that the final deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year will be $1 billion, a far cry from the $4.7 billion originally forecast.
Heather Wellwood, president of the Alberta School Boards Association, welcomed Hancock’s decision.
”We are pleased to see that education was put in the forefront and a decision was made with the lower deficit to fund school boards so they can meet their obligations,“ she said in a telephone interview from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Wellwood said the province’s 62 school boards had to make “tough decisions” in the spring when the Alberta government did not allocate any money to them so they pay their support staff and teachers what was agreed to in legal contracts.
Some boards laid off teachers because they didn’t know when the money was coming from the government, Wellwood said.
Getting the money for Sept. 1 means school boards can “readjust and redo (our) budgets and get people back into the classrooms for our students,” Wellwood said.