The Medicine Hat Public School Division will see 1.4 per cent less financial support from the Alberta government next school year. CHAT News file

By Eli J. Ridder

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A shift in the way the Medicine Hat Public School Division allocates money for a joint project that recently appeared as a decrease in provincial funding is more of a financial technicality, a school board official said Thursday.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association on Wednesday raised concerns over an apparent 1.4 per cut to MHPSD funding for the 2024-25 school year, criticizing the Alberta government.

The drop in cash from the province, amounting to over $1 million compared to the current school year, did not come as a surprise, according to the school division’s secretary treasurer Leanne Dulle.

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“The reduction in that funding was expected,” Dulle told CHAT News.

Secretary treasurer Leanne Dulle speaks with CHAT News. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

MHPSD partnered with the Prairie Rose School Division and Medicine Hat College to fund the specialized Coolee Collegiate program starting in 2020.

The institution, through distance and in-person learning, offers classes to high school age and mature students.

Until now, the two school boards split the cost in half for the program. But for the 2024 to 2025 school year, all the funds will come from Prairie Rose to simplify finances.

That’s why there’s a slight drop in provincial funding through the Alberta education funding profile, Dulle explained.

“We’ll still receive our funding for those students, it’ll just come to us in a little bit of a different way, not right from Alberta [Education] directly,” Dulle said.

That will be reflected as extra provincial funding for the Prairie Rose division, she added.

Medicine Hat’s public school division was just one of several receiving cuts in the next school year but it was unclear if the others also received cuts due to way money is allocated.

In response to a request for comment, Alberta’s education minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in a statement that education funding across the province is breaking records.

“Funding to education in Alberta is at record high levels,” Nicolaides said.

“This year alone, we are advancing 43 priority school projects moving the total active projects to 98 this will create 35,000 student spaces across the province,” he said.

“We are supporting the hiring of more than 3,000 teachers and classroom support staff over the next three years.”

He did acknowledge that cash to some school divisions are being curtailed for the next school year.

“Some school divisions saw very small reductions due primarily to declining enrolment in those communities and lower COVID related funding,” Nicolaides said.

More information about the public school division’s 2024-25 budget will become available when its board of trustees meets on Tuesday.