Union to meet with minister, wants money used to reverse recent job cuts

A1

By Mary Moszynski
Times & Transcript Staff

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

16 Comment(s)

FREDERICTON - The New Brunswick Teachers' Federation hopes to convince government to reverse recent cutbacks and scrap a controversial fund the union says is mired in bureaucracy and required the province to hire additional employees to administer the program.

Officials from the union will meet with Education Minister Roland Haché this morning to ask him to direct the money in the $3.4-million Innovative Learning Fund towards rehiring the 580 employees, which include library assistants and teaching assistants, who recently received lay-off notices. The cuts saved government $2.9 million.

"The funding in the ILF was taken from classrooms -- it needs to go back," said Brent Shaw, co-president of the federation. "We need the resources in place."

The $5-million fund was created to give grants to teachers who develop innovative ways to teach literacy, science and numeracy. Although former education minister Kelly Lamrock refused to scrap the fund, he reduced it to roughly $3.4 million this year.

After the fund was created, government hired 16 employees to work at the school district level to help administer the program. The new employees spend half of their time working on the fund and the rest of their time on other duties. There are also two employees listed in the provincial government's directory who work on the fund out of Fredericton.

"The process, they've made it so complicated at the department level that they had to hire all those half-time people out there," said Shaw. "That half-time person is out there helping teachers go through all the foolishness of having to apply for the money that was already theirs at one time. That's part of the problem with this; it's bureaucracy at its finest."

Haché is refusing to comment on the fund until he wraps up meetings with unions next week.

The Department of Education was unable to provide the salaries of the program's employees. However, a spokeswoman said money from the fund isn't being used to pay the employees.

"They are teachers who help other teachers," said spokeswoman Hillary Casey. "They help guide the teachers through creating and developing their programs to apply for ILF funding."

Despite government's earlier statements that it would refuse to scrap the fund, Shaw said he remains optimistic that the recent cutbacks will be reversed.

Any grants promised to teachers should be honoured as plans are already under way to spend the money or a portion of a grant may have already been spent, he added.

"How optimistic am I? I'm very optimistic," he said. "If anybody will listen to reasoning and process it and move forward, then this is one of those things that's pretty motherhood and apple pie."

Although pink slips have already been given to a number of employees, Shaw said he doesn't expect it would be too difficult to reverse the cuts, even if some employees have been bumped out of their positions.

"I personally wouldn't see anybody having a major issue with getting their jobs back."

Opposition leader David Alward said he supports the teachers.

"I'm certainly supportive of what the message has been from the teachers and other organizations including various parents as well. We've been saying the same thing all along: that it makes sense to have the supports in the classrooms."