A drop of more than $400 million in the amounts allocated by Quebec to counter the deficit in maintaining buildings in the school network could force the suspension of renovation work in schools and the layoff of architects and engineers, it has been noted. The duty.
In recent years, the Quebec government has increased its investments to address the backlog in maintaining the province’s schools, which has continued to grow and now stands at nearly $8.5 billion. Documents from the latest provincial budget indicate that 56% of the school network’s buildings are considered to be in poor or very poor condition, although Quebec had set a target of having at least half of them in good condition by… 2023.
In its 2023-2027 Strategic Plan, the Ministry of Education has since revised this target to 40% for the next school year.
“The schools are safe, the integrity of the buildings is there,” assures Dominique Robert, deputy president and CEO of the Fédération des centres de services scolaires du Québec (FCSSQ), in an interview. “That being said, the needs are still major,” he notes.
It is therefore at the very moment when many projects are planned or underway in order to absorb part of this accumulated maintenance deficit – which is manifested in particular by leaking roofs and ventilation problems – that the FCSSQ notes that its members will have fewer resources this year to finance this work, which is nevertheless necessary to extend the lifespan of several buildings.
“Priority works” delayed
A notice written by the FCSSQ last month in the context of a consultation on Quebec’s budget rules thus reports a reduction of $409.2 million in the overall envelope intended for the maintenance of buildings in 2024-2025 compared to the amount granted by Quebec for this purpose last year. A decrease of 22% whose repercussions could be multiple, warns the organization.
In this context, the FCSSQ fears that school service centres will have no choice but to delay “priority work” or even cancel maintenance projects.
However, “in recent years, there has been a deficit to make up. So, it is clear that this need is there and it is glaring,” says Mr. Robert, who remains hopeful of convincing Quebec to increase the budget allocated for this purpose.
“It’s an issue, especially with the state of our real estate here in Montreal,” says Kathleen Legault, president of the Montreal Association of School Principals. The CSS de Montréal alone has an asset maintenance deficit of $1.8 billion, and more than 76% of its buildings are considered to be in poor condition.
Jobs at stake
The preservation of “more than a hundred jobs” is also at stake, indicates the FCSSQ notice. These include architects and engineers working in various CSS, whose employer risks no longer having the means to finance their salaries due to the reduction in the amounts allocated.
“When we come to the conclusion that we will have to abolish positions responsible for school infrastructure [parce que le financement est insuffisant]”It shows that education is not a priority,” says Patricia Clermont, spokesperson for the movement I protect my public school. “I find that really worrying.”
Students, for their part, could also suffer from this situation, warns the FCSSQ notice. Some school service centres risk in particular “being forced to cancel space improvement projects whose financial structure depends in part on asset maintenance allocations”. This would then limit the number of premises available to accommodate students, who “will not be able to benefit from optimal learning conditions”, indicates the document of about fifty pages.
” The deterioration [des bâtiments]it is certain that we experience it on a daily basis,” notes in an interview the vice-president of labor relations at the Autonomous Federation of Education, Benoît Giguère.
The situation affects several students, the teacher notes. In some cases, young people have to be transferred to another school when the one where they study has several premises “unused because temporarily condemned” due to their dilapidated condition; in other cases, students are forced to study in trailers while classes are renovated, he points out.
However, when students are welcomed into buildings in poor condition, “it affects academic success,” says Carl Ouellet, president of the Association québécoise du personnel de direction des écoles. He also deplores the fact that this drop in funding comes after several years of increased investment in the fight against the maintenance deficit in the school system. “We were starting to catch up, and now we’re putting the brakes on,” he sighs.
Transparency
Joined by The dutythe office of Education Minister Bernard Drainville confirmed that $400 million less will be invested in the fight against the school maintenance deficit this year. However, it states that “the 10-year annual average” of funding allocated for this purpose “continues to increase.”
“The state of our school infrastructure remains a priority for our government,” assures the office of Minister Drainville, who also acknowledges that “the needs are great” in Quebec’s aging schools. A situation that he attributes, however, to the “effects of underfunding by previous governments.”
The secretary-treasurer of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, Luc Beauregard, considers this decision by the Quebec government, taken “in the middle of summer,” to reduce the “amounts allocated this year for school maintenance” to be “surprising” and “shocking.” “The government would have benefited from being transparent by clearly explaining its decision and listening to education stakeholders,” he wrote to Duty.
“This attitude demonstrates the opacity of the management of public finances while the government stated, during the presentation of its last budget, that it would reduce the deficit in maintaining buildings,” he added.