Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my questions about the provision of school bus services, I have some questions for the Minister of Education. When we approve the budget for ECE in this House, the budget document contains very few details about how that money for schools is spent, and it's unclear what money goes to the local DEAs and how it gets there. So my question is: how are the funds that are approved by the Legislature distributed to DEAs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The MLA is right; the Legislation, it starts with us. We approve the budget that is going forward for schools. At that point, then, ECE allocates the budgets to the district education councils, and we use a school funding formula for that. That funding formula has different aspects; some for inclusive schooling, some for French languages, some per capita for the number of children in school. Then the education authority, at that point, we kind of lose our authority within that. ECE does not have a mandate within our education net to provide direction to any district education council regarding the allocations to be used to fund their district education authorities. So, because we haven't got the mandate and we have no authority over it, we don't track those, Mr. Speaker.
Some DECs have allocated money to their authorities based on the same school funding that we have, and others don't. The South Slave District Education Council, we do know, does fund based on our school funding formula. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
So, because of how the SSDEC distributes funds, the Hay River DEA receives only the funding that is calculated in the funding formula. Now, I haven't gone through the DEA's books line by line, but I know that their budget is stretched thin and they have absolutely no wiggle room. I know the budget amount for busing doesn't cover the full cost of busing, and because their entire budget is already fully utilized, they have no extra funds to put aside to cover the costs of replacing the buses which need to be replaced in the next year or two. In the meantime, the district education council, the SSDEC, has been accumulating a surplus of over $3 million, as of I believe last year. Couldn't that DEC surplus be used to either fund the busing issue that we're having now or help replace the buses?
The basic, quick answer is yes. The district education councils and the district education authorities, under that, are responsible for deciding where they're going to use their funding, the best allocations of their budgets, but it was just last year that we realized that there were huge surpluses within our education districts all over the place so, in my opinion, that's not good. It's not good to have surpluses, huge surpluses, when we have children education services in need. I said that the other day. We need more resources. Part of getting the resources is, if we have money sitting out there, let's use what we've got.
So I did make the direction that people need to use their surpluses; use it or lose it. We allowed them to keep a nominal amount so that they could deal with any emergencies, but the rest, I wanted to see implemented into student services. I brought that up at the council meeting. I thought I worked well with the district councils. They heard me. I said I'm flexible. So, yes, I've actually reached out to them, as well. Usually, within our allocations, we don't usually allow surpluses for capital projects because we do have a capital process within that, but I told the councils that I am flexible; come to me.
In the case of the South Slave, we were working with them, and I told them I'm flexible. It would take a Minister's direction to allow that, but I am willing to work with them. If buses are their priority, my priority is getting kids to school.
As the Minister mentioned, she ordered the education councils to reduce their surpluses; basically, spend this money. I think the SSDEC had to reduce their surplus by about $2 million, but in none of that was any money for buses. So why wasn't there any money allocated for the busing services in Hay River in that $2-million reduction?
Again, the act is kind of vague on the authority of the Minister, and I'm very respectful of them, they're all elected positions, so I'm respectful of their allocations and what they see fit for their regions. We don't tell the district education councils what to use their surpluses on. I felt that was very limiting; it's very patriarchal, it's not how I practise, so we gave the flexibility to say, "Tell us what you're going to use your surplus on."
The sad thing is, Mr. Speaker, that the South Slave District Education Council never identified busing as an issue within their surplus plan, so I never knew it was an issue until it came forward; in fact, the MLA brought it forward with a letter from a parent. That was the point that I knew it became an issue.
Like I said before, my concern is that I want children to get to school, so I have instructed my staff to get down there and work with them and see what we can do to assist them.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We distribute a lot of money to the regional education councils, and I know that there must be some accounting of what they're spending that money on, and there must be some results that they need to produce, and so perhaps we need to start looking at whether or not they are adequately funding things like busing, as well as the other things that we're looking at.
The Minister mentioned that her department had some talks with the employees in the DEC. Can the Minister sort of expand on what steps the department has taken to help mitigate the costs that parents could be incurring in Hay River in regard to this busing and what is being done to ensure that some long-term planning is done so that the buses that need to be replaced can be replaced in a way that's affordable for parents and that doesn't stop children from getting to school? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My direction to my department was, "Get down there, figure it out, work with them, get it solved." I can't really say exactly what was said in those meetings. That was my direction: get her done.
I'd love to be able to stay here and say what was stated, but I can't do that. What I can say is that my concern, again, and the MLA brought it up outside the House, actually, outside this Chamber, actually, and was talking to me, and he is absolutely right. He talked about low-income families and children not being able to afford to get there. Twenty-five kilometres is not acceptable. I don't care if it's winter or summer. I know in his statement he said it's cold here. I lived seven or eight blocks away from the school; I had to walk. I was a block away, I froze every winter. I would not want any child 25 kilometres walking, even in the summer, to be honest. We have bears.
So I've told them to work with them. There are models across Canada that I'm hoping the district education council will look at. There are subsidies for children with low income, based on income that they're making. I'm hoping they'll consider that, but what I really want to stress to families out there that might be struggling financially is that I have talked to my department. Income support does provide services for low-income families under the income threshold. If they qualify for income support, we are willing to include the cost of getting to school and school supplies within our funding formula. So any family that may be in financial need worried about that, please contact income support, as well. We want your children in school starting in September. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
