“Overwhelmingly, especially in small and medium-sized municipalities, education spending consumes the vast majority of their budgets. This issue must be properly regulated,” said Przemysław Czarnek, Law and Justice’s candidate for prime minister, during the “Thinking Poland – Alternative 2” conference. In his view, reorganizing the system of teacher employment could significantly improve the financial situation of local governments.
Politicians from the Law and Justice party gathered in Chełm for another conference in the “Thinking Poland – Alternative 2.0” series. Saturday’s event focused on local government issues. One of the panel discussions featured PiS prime ministerial candidate Przemysław Czarnek, who argued that changes to the way education is administered could substantially improve the financial standing of municipalities.
Read more: Czarnek on fixing local government budgets: Remove political influence from city-run schools“I believe that the decentralization of education management, to a certain extent, is a very important achievement and a success. Who, if not the mayor and municipal council, or the county executive and county council, should care for the schools attended by children from their communities? That is the essence of local government. However, we need a systemic approach to the way teachers are employed, by whom they are employed, and consequently, by whom they are paid. Otherwise, we will continue to face situations where authorities propose ‘something’ without allocating funds for it,”
he said.
“This is the problem local governments are facing today. In the vast majority of cases, especially in small and medium-sized municipalities, education expenditures account for an overwhelming share of the budget. This must be addressed through proper regulation,” he added.
The PiS deputy chairman did not want to present a concrete solution at this stage because, as he explained, it still needs to be discussed with local government officials. “But it must be systemic and once and for all put an end to the situation in which local governments are burdened with responsibilities they are unable to sustain,” he stressed.
He acknowledged that the discussion may not be easy.
“When I was education minister, these discussions showed that mayors in small, medium-sized, and even larger municipalities were absolutely willing to hand over responsibility for maintaining teachers and paying teachers’ salaries. However, in larger cities, and especially the biggest cities, they were absolutely against it, because once a mayor stopped being responsible for hiring principals and teachers, and was responsible only, for example, for maintaining school infrastructure, they would also lose influence over who is employed at the school and who teaches there,”
he explained.