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 says staff failed to give cabinet clear facts on later-reversed funding cuts
Jacques Poitras · CBC News
· Posted: Sep 15, 2025 3:56 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago
New 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, Lemrock 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.
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