“It feels like we’re being punished for doing a good job in increasing our numbers, servicing more students with less money,” he said.
“We hear about the Government being flush with funding to fund big ticket items like big projects but the ‘boring stuff’ like education is ignored. Children in remote areas deserve an opportunity like city children.”
Cr Miegel was commenting at council’s monthly meeting on December 18 after a report was tabled by council’s director corporate and community services Kristy Kay.
“The Preschool budget is under an increasing level of pressure due to there being no change in the level of funding received from the NSW Government since 2016, despite the fact that enrolment numbers have increased significantly since then,” Ms Kay advised.
“Our funding contract with the Department of Education is a fixed amount based on the number of children enrolled in the service at the time of the Preschool census in 2015 and also does not allow for any CPI increases.
“Council’s mobile Preschool service supports families in rural and remote areas. All of our Preschool families are affected by the current drought situation and have been impacted by the major frost events.”
Cr Miegel’s comments were supported by Cr Gail Law who was extremely disappointed at the obvious lack of appropriate funding for both preschools and libraries.
Federation Council’s mobile Preschool operates at Rand on Monday, Urana on Tuesday, Boree Creek on Wednesday and Oaklands on Thursday. Friday is being proposed for Daysdale.
Federation Council resolved to advocate to the NSW Government for additional funding to support the service into the future.