Local school boards will have to dip into their reserve funds over the next year, but many other people let out a sigh of relief after major cuts didn’t materialize in the provincial budget announced on Tuesday.

The anticipated $2 billion “correction” that was expected won’t take place.

The Alberta government will have a deficit of $4.7 billion for fiscal year 2010/2011, which will be offset by its $15 billion sustainability fund.

Alberta Health Services fared well, with it receiving a six per cent increase to its base operating grant, taking it to $9 billion, with increases of six per cent for the next two years as well.

The budget puts $6.1 billion towards education for elementary and secondary students in 2010-11 — a 0.7-per-cent increase from the 2009-10 forecast.

“Everyone said it could have been worse and it could have been, but it’s bad enough,” said Bill Stuebing, chair of the Red Deer Public School District.

He said the province is restoring grant money for the 2010-11 school year that was clawed back last August from school boards for the 2009-10 school year and provincial government will also put more money into the system to pay for the additional students who are part of a wave of new kindergarten students.

But Stuebing said the provincial government is not putting additional money towards education to cover the around three to four per cent increase to costs that happen each school year, which is essentially like cutting funding.

The education minister has asked school divisions not to cut staff, but with more than 70 per cent of the budget of both the Red Deer Public and Red Deer Catholic Regional School divisions going towards staffing it leaves the school districts with very little wiggle room.

Stuebing said he expects the public district will need to find approximately $3 million to pay for cost increases not covered by the provincial budget, which will likely cause the board to dip into its restricted reserves — meaning funds saved specifically for things like maintenance and transportation.

Others were glad the budget wasn’t as bad as anticipated.

Christine Moore, chair of the Red Deer Catholic Regional School Division, said she was happy that there were no further cuts to education. She said the budget might not have been ideal, but it could have been considerably worse.

“We were worried way back in August that we were going to be facing more cutbacks so although we’re going to have to spend money (from our reserve funds) to keep things going it was good news that there weren’t any cuts,” Moore said. “We are thankful that we have the reserves and can make things work.”

Ken Collier, chair of the local Red Deer and Area Chapter of the Council of Canadians, was part of a protest on provincial funding cuts, held at City Hall park on Tuesday.

“I think it’s good that (the provincial government) finally decided to use their rainy day funds to keep services at least at a minimal level and this was across the board from education to health to seniors and long-term care,” Collier said. “That kind of funding should have been promised a long time ago. Why they waited this long to come to that realization that this is what the rainy day fund is for is one of life’s great mysteries.”

But while he is pleased sustainability funding is being used, he said it’s important to recognize that there have been literally dozens of cuts in the past year to services around the province that have not been reversed in the budget and as a result the programs or services no longer exist. He pointed to the number of hospital beds that once existed in the province compared to now. He said in 1989 there were more than 13,000 hospital beds and now 20 years later, with an extra million people in the province, there are only around 6,800.

Dom Mancuso, president of the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce, said from the chamber’s perspective they were pleased there were no increases to taxes for business or ordinary citizens, with continued spending on health and wellness and education. He said he was surprised there weren’t severe cuts, with many people expecting it would be a year when everyone was going to have to suffer.

He said knowing that the government is going to continue funding major projects like new schools, hospitals and roads will be good for many companies.

“As far as we’re concerned it was a good budget,” Mancuso said. “Everything about it worked well.”

sobrien@reddeeradvocate.com