Revenues and Expenditures of Saskatchewan School Boards from 2004 to 2014
Despite taking in record amounts of revenue during the economic boom years, Saskatchewan’s government failed to maintain K-12 education funding as a percentage of our provincial GDP. The report, Underinvesting in Our Future by Dr. David McGrane, demonstrates that we are currently spending the lowest amount on K-12 education, measured as a percentage of GDP, in modern Saskatchewan history. Since 2007, K-12 education funding has fallen from an average of 3.08% of GDP to only 2.6% of GDP. Had the government continued to fund K-12 education in Saskatchewan at the same percentage of provincial GDP as the last four years of the Calvert government, there would have been approximately $2.4 billion more spent in the K-12 system from 2008 to 2014.
Dr. McGrane further identifies recent changes to Saskatchewan’s education property tax regime as exacerbating the chronic underfunding of K-12 education in the province. Dr. McGrane recommends that recent changes to the education property tax regime should be re-visited and that the Saskatchewan provincial government should set a goal of spending, at a minimum, of 3% of nominal GDP on our province’s K-12 education system each year.
