Education and the 2009 budget – Report Card

It’s always a challenge in the lockup to figure out what money is “new” and what has been announced previously. Take the capital spending, for example. The budget promises $1.3 billion over three years to replace, renovate or expand K-12 facilities (including seismic upgrades). But as we found out, that is for projects already planned or underway.

This might suggest that the rebuilding of U Hill has been delayed for three years. If K-12 capital project (i.e. building) is for planed or underway projects U Hill is out of consideration in terms of the ‘underway’ category. We would need some details to understand what constitutes fitting under the ‘planned’ category. Does the fact that there is not agreement in principle in place at this time for U Hill mean that it is outside of the ‘planned’ category? Let’s hope not.