WATCH ABOVE: The education ministry is off-loading some of the cost to develop a new joint-use school site and councillors say it’s not their domain
REGINA – It’s still three years until an empty field in northwest Regina will be home to a joint-use school.
Regina city council is already taking steps to provide road and sewer service to the site in the future development called Skywood, but it’s happening years ahead of schedule – at a price of $6 million.
Councillors only expected to spend half of that.
“We’ve been given an ultimatum to play along or miss out on the school,” said Ward 3 councillor Shawn Fraser.
Building a new school in the past meant the province purchased the land from a developer.
Now, the education ministry is essentially telling municipalities, ‘If you don’t build it, we won’t come.’
At least, not as quickly.
“Had it not gone ahead, it would have fallen back as a traditional build sometime in the future,” education minister Don Morgan said.
Morgan told reporters the government drove the same bargain with Saskatoon, Warman and Martensville, which are also part of the plan for nine joint-use schools in Saskatchewan, to be built through a public-private partnership (P3).
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Mayor Michael Fougere said Wednesday it’s critical to get the schools built any way possible.
“It’s different in a one-off situation because we’ve never had this before,” Fougere said. “But we certainly believe education funding should rest with the province.”
Fraser isn’t as confident it’s a one-time only, believing the more money taken from Regina’s reserve fund for parks and green spaces means less money spent elsewhere.
“If the P3 school idea with the province is going to work, we need to make sure it works (on its own merit), not just, ‘It’s cheaper because responsibilities are passed on to other levels of government,’ ” said Fraser.
The education minister has a much different opinion.
“We think the cost should be borne by the ratepayers in the areas that are getting the maximum benefit,” Morgan said.
The city does expect to recoup part of the cost from the developer of the Skywood neighbourhood, but how much of that $6 million will come back to Regina taxpayers may not be known until well after the school opens in late 2017.
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