Alberta’s 2019 budget is set to be tabled Thursday, and while Premier Jason Kenney hasn’t shared too many details on what that budget might include, he has made it clear that the province will be seeing some financial cutbacks.
“The spending restraint that we must deliver to get back to balance in four years and prevent a huge debt problem in this province will be thoughtful, prudent, focused and limited,” said Kenney during an event on Oct. 27.
Christine Lee, executive director of business affairs for Lethbridge School Division, said she hopes those cutbacks don’t occur in the classroom.
“We don’t want to see our class sizes increase,” Lee said.
“When we are funded for growth, that helps us in keeping class sizes at a reasonable level. Of course, it all depends on the funding grants that we receive from the government on a go-forward basis.”
Lee said she has high hopes for Thursday’s budget, adding the province has already committed to extra funding for nutrition programs across the province.
“It was announced by minister Adriana LaGrange that they’ll be increasing nutritional grant funding in this budget tomorrow by 20 per cent,” she said.
“That is certainly great news for a district as we have a lot of students that rely on the food and nutritional programs that we offer.”
Lee is even hoping to see some new capital developments in the new budget that will directly benefit the growing student population in West Lethbridge.
“We’re hopeful that our school division will maybe receive news of planning money for a new elementary school in west Lethbridge,” she said.
“We have exceeded capacity in our elementary schools in west Lethbridge. We need one badly because that is a strong area of growth.”
As for the local business economy, the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce’s executive officer, Cyndi Vos, said she’s hoping the provincial government will stay true to the promises it made during the election campaign earlier this year.
“What we’re really hoping for is a budget that strengthens business, a budget that helps grow potential trade and looks at building healthy communities as well as government accountability,” she said.
“We want to make sure that all of those things that [Kenney] talked about… he’s putting it into place.”
Alberta is currently sitting in more than $62 billion of debt and faces multi-billion-dollar deficits. However, Kenney has promised to balance the provincial budget by 2022-2023.