Alberta’s education minister, Adriana Lagrange, says private schools in Alberta will have to account for the province’s private sources of income, despite what government officials and one of her cabinet colleagues said hours earlier Monday.
“Independent schools in Alberta will still have to report to Alberta Education information related to private sources of income, including education,” Lagrange said in an e-mail statement Monday night. “This will continue to be required as part of the audited financial statements they provide to Alberta Education annually.
“This legislation and the regulation we will draft will eliminate the requirement to report training / fee information, using a specific timetable developed by Alberta Education. This is an example of how we are eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy in the education system. “
Bill 21, the Law on Amendments to the Statute for Reducing Bureaucracy, 2022, proposes amendments to 15 pieces of legislation by nine government ministries. The bill was submitted to parliament on Monday.
Materials provided to reporters about the bill and emails said the government would not require private schools, which receive 70 percent of their funding from the provincial treasury, to report how much they charge for tuition if a new reduction bill is passed. of the bureaucracy the legislature.
Tanya Fir, the deputy minister for cutting red tape, told a news conference before submitting the bill to the legislature that the government should not know the amount of training, as it is a private source of funding.
“Our focus on this bill is again to increase this accountability on the use of dollars by state taxpayers, not private dollars,” she said, advising reporters to continue with the education minister.
Earlier on Monday, officials told reporters that independent private schools are not currently required to disclose financial information, and said Alberta Education would still only require reporting the public portion of school funding through an activity report.
LaGrange’s statement contradicts this information.
Sarah Hoffman, an opposition critic of the NDP’s education, said the UCP government was deliberately hiding how much these wealthy private schools make from tuition fees from parents.
“As contributors to the financing of private schools, taxpayers in Alberta should have the right to know what other revenue streams these schools have and what their balance sheet looks like,” she said.
Brad Lafortun, executive director of the Alberta Public Interest Advocacy Group, is concerned about the government’s drive for private and charter schools until it funds the public education system.
“Every dollar that enters a private system is a dollar that is taken out of the public system,” he said. “And the provincial government should not give priority to the expansion of private schools and the financing of private schools at the expense of public education.”
The Ministries of Environment and Parks, Health, Children’s Services, Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development, Municipal Affairs, the Alberta Service and the Ministry of Finance and Finance also see legislative changes in the name of cutting red tape.
Bill 21 proposes changes to the Provincial Parks Act and the Public Lands Act to allow the government to devise area-specific recreational uses to avoid policies that suit everyone.
A spokesman said the legislation would allow “provisions on the ground that better take into account the needs of local and regional stakeholders”, but would not take precedence over the requirements of existing legislation.
Other changes proposed in Bill 21 include:
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Allow rural electrification associations (REAs) to buy other REAs and expand their activities.
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Move the regulation of some aspects of pharmacy operations from the government to the College of Pharmacy in Alberta.
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Editing addresses and contact information from declarations for disclosure of candidates for candidates for municipal and school councils.
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Currently, the Minister of Municipal Affairs has the power to dismiss a municipal council or its chief administrative officer. Bill 21 will give the minister new tools to deal with unruly advice, including setting limits in dollars for their spending decisions.
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