New BrunswickThis spring’s cuts to district education council budgets were a ‘fiasco’ that resulted from ‘significant failures’ by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, according to a report from New Brunswick’s child and youth advocate.Kelly Lamrock says staff failed to give cabinet clear facts on later-reversed funding cutsJacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: Sep 15, 2025 3:56 PM EDT | Last Updated: September 16New Brunswick’s child and youth advocate, Kelly Lamrock (shown in a file photo), found that provincial government talking points about the impact of the education budget cuts ‘had a dubious relationship with the truth.’ The province eventually restored $14.6 million to the school districts. (Pat Richard/CBC)This spring’s cuts to district education council budgets were a “fiasco” that resulted from “significant failures” by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, according to a report from New Brunswick’s child and youth advocate.Kelly Lamrock’s scathing new report said officials didn’t provide the Holt Liberal cabinet with accurate information about the implications of their budgeting decisions.The department didn’t make it clear to ministers that the $37 million that the districts needed to cover the cost of wage increases and new classrooms was a legal obligation, and not at all discretionary, Lamrock wrote in “Wake Up Call: Learning from the Education Budgeting Saga.””The result was that government appeared to be unaware of the degree to which failing to fund these provincial obligations would result in cuts,” Lamrock said. WATCH | ‘There didn’t seem to be any awareness’: advocate on district cuts: Advocate blames education department for district budget ‘fiasco’Kelly Lamrock says department staff didn’t give the New Brunswick cabinet key facts on what funding cuts would mean for students. “In short, the budget process failed to provide cabinet with a credible understanding of the funding levels needed just to maintain the status quo.”The net effect was cuts to other positions essential to student learning, says the report. Some districts laid off library workers, support workers for children with behavioural problems, curriculum support staff or others in the wake of the March budget.The Liberals eventually reversed themselves and provided more funding, but Lamrock said the episode highlighted a failure of accountability in the system.After the report was released Monday, the department turned down an interview request for minister Claire Johnson. However, in a written statement, she thanked Lamrock and said she accepts “all the report’s recommendations, in principle.”Johnson’s statement said the launch of consultations on a new provincial education plan would give the government the chance to hear from New Brunswickers on how to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes. Earlier this year, Michel Côté, the Francophone South District Education Council chair, said he would ‘most likely’ have to cut jobs to cope with a request to find $7.1 million in budget savings. (CBC)The government’s March budget increased education spending by $200 million, but because much of the money was earmarked for legally required areas, it left districts forced to make cuts.Francophone South district education council chair Michel Côté said Monday that it was “practically impossible” to implement the budget cut without touching classrooms, as the province demanded.He said what struck him about Lamrock’s report was the suggestion that the impact on students always be the first consideration in any funding decision.”Last-minute fixes shouldn’t be the norm when children’s education is at stake,” Lamrock’s office wrote on its website as it released the report.When the district cuts became public in April, Johnson said the changes would ensure more resources were going into classrooms.School library cuts made without an impact assessmentDocuments show New Brunswick education officials did not assess the impact on students before 32 library positions were eliminated in the Anglophone West School District to save money. Lamrock said the failure to understand that the wage increases and the hiring of 170 new classroom teachers, to comply with a formula on student-teacher ratios, prompted government talking points “which had a dubious relationship with the truth.”In fact, the department had no plan to steer more resources into classroom teaching, while the cuts deprived teachers of resource staff upon whom they had relied, he said.The government message “seemed more designed to gaslight than to illuminate,” the report said.In May, Johnson said the Liberals were “sort of surprised” at the cuts and had expected “that there’d be zero impact on the schools, zero impact on the classrooms.”Minister of Education Claire Johnson, shown in a file photo, released a statement Monday thanking Kelly Lamrock for his work and saying she accepts ‘all the report’s recommendations, in principle.’ (Katelin Belliveau/CBC)The province announced in June that it would restore $14.6 million to the districts, which Lamrock said “minimized” the loss of classroom supports.Lamrock said this appears to have resulted in part from his sharing of a draft report on the cuts with the government in the spring — a draft that apparently helped alert them to the true impact of the budget.Even so, the report concludes that the “budget fiasco” was the result of broader failures in the department, including “ineffective” communications with districts, a willingness to ignore legal requirements, and the prioritizing of messaging and spin over analysis.It also faults the department for talking about district education council autonomy when there is a controversial decision it doesn’t want to deal with, while also micromanaging district-level decisions in other areas.Lamrock recommended that the province clarify the roles of the department and districts, create a “reserve fund” to ensure there is money to meet its legal obligations to help students with special needs, and focus on basic learning in the early school years.ABOUT THE AUTHORJacques Poitras has been CBC’s provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.
Child advocate slams Education Department over budget ‘fiasco’ that led to layoffs
