NT COGSO President Ruth Mirams says schools are seeing massive increases in their power bills after a 3 per cent increase started on July 1st, with schools no longer receiving the CSO electricity subsidy, which will mean cuts to education programs

Hook: Massive electricity price hikes are hitting Northern Territory schools - find out just how much and the impact it's having.

Overview: In this episode we discuss the removal of electricity subsidies for NT schools leading to huge price increases, with some schools seeing bills triple or more. We speak to the NT Council of Government Schools Organization president Ruth Myram about the changes, impacts on school budgets, and calls for the NT government to reinstate subsidies.

00:20 - Introduction and background on electricity pricing changes in the NT
01:30 - Examples of price increases at schools, including a 636% jump for one school
02:45 - Impact on school budgets and programs
04:15 - Previous level of subsidies received by schools
05:30 - Increases seen across almost all NT schools
06:45 - Concerns over new federal school funding now needing to pay electricity bills
08:00 - Calls to action from NT COGSO president Ruth Myram
09:15 - Concerns if government doesn't come to the table on this issue

Key Takeaways:
- Removal of electricity subsidies has led to massive, unplanned price hikes for NT schools
- Some schools seeing bills triple or more in one month
- Impacting budgets for student programs, resources and activities
- COGSO calling for reinstatement of subsidies and support from NT government

Listen now to hear the full discussion on the electricity pricing crisis hitting Northern Territory schools.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, on July first, the Northern Territory government announced a
number of changes to electricity pricing in the Northern Territory.
We spoke quite a bit about this now. It saw
a three percent increase in power, water and sewerage tariffs
for twenty twenty five twenty six, but NT schools were
taken off the subsidy list and moved to cost reflective

(00:20):
pricing and will no longer receive the Community Service Obligation
CSO subsidy for electricity. So the NT Council of Government
Schools organization say it means massive power price increases for schools,
with one school reporting a six hundred and thirty six
percent jump in just one month. Now joining us on

(00:41):
the line is nt COGSO President Ruth Myram's. Good morning
to you, Ruth.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Good morning Katie, Good morning to your listeners. Lovely to
be with you again.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, lovely to chat to you this morning. Ruth. Can
you break down these electricity price changes for us and
what it means for government schools?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, one one, duly. As we know, the tariffs went up,
and you know we understand costs of living and those
kind of things. These increases have to happen. But this
cost reflective pricing and the removal of the community service
obligation means the network and supply charges have really jumped,
and so schools are seeing these massive increases, as you said,
six hundred and thirty six percent for one school, other

(01:21):
schools doubling and tripling in just one month. And you know,
as we know, budgets just can't accommodate this. You can't
suddenly have a bill triple and just find that money somewhere.
And it's really that money set aside for our children, Katie,
for the programs and services and things they need in
their school, and having to use it to keep the
lights in the aircon on.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So Ruth, tell me, like, for some of these schools,
can you give us some examples of like just how
much money this has meant for them in a month.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah? Sure. So for example, you know my school down here,
I can tell you because I'm on the school council,
so I've seen the bills. We've gone from about five
thousand dollars in June to about seventeen in July, and like,
I don't know about you, KT, but we don't have
twelve thousand dollars sitting around for a spare power bill.

(02:10):
Goodness what we do? Yeah, so they're not, and you know,
you reflect that across the one hundred and fifty two schools
in the territory. Not that every school is going to
be the same. It's different in different places. You can
just imagine what that means.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, and the thing is like you're in Tennant Creek.
We're literally just gone, like we're in you know, the
cooler months for you guys in Tenant Creek, what's it
going to be like when you're having to run the
you know, the air conditioning because it's it's really hot outside.
I would anticipate that it's probably going to get higher
as it gets.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Hotter, exactly exactly. So this is the lowest we can
sort of expect it to be for the year. It's
just going to get more. And we're quite worried about
what this means and what can we do. We can't
not have the economics Yeah, ay degrees?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, so tell me, I mean, how like how much
in subsidies were school receiving previously?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so it's quite COMPLEXICADID I'm still there in my
head around it myself, to be honest, but this community
service subsidy funding, understand, is estimated in one hundreds of millions.
And that's not just across schools, that's across all kinds
of organizations. And what's really concerning to us is that
schools have been put in with these commercial, big commercial

(03:24):
providers and big government departments. And you know, I understand
we've got to tighten the belt. We know that cost
of living's affecting everyone and governments too, and we're not
trying to you know, we want to pay our fair share.
We get that, but I just don't understand why schools
are the ones being hit for this to recover you know,
some of this money we're estimating we've got data in

(03:45):
at COGSO from the from twelve schools so far, and
we're looking at close to a million dollar increase per annum,
which is significant for our schools, but for government that's
kind of a drop in the bucket. So I just
don't know why they're coming to schools to try and
recover this kind of money.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Well, and I mean put this into perspective for us
as well. Roots when you look at schools and you
look at their operating budget, you know, for the school
Intendant Creig. For example, if your power bills going up
by twelve thousand dollars in a month.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Did you say yeah, in a month?

Speaker 1 (04:15):
So if it's going up by twelve thousand dollars, what's
going to have to be cush or what are you
going to have to do differently in order to pay
for that?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, it's exactly the conversations we're having, Katie. So we're
looking at, you know, do we need to cut programs?
Do we stop running additional sport? Do we cut a camp?
Do we need to raise our higher fees? You know,
lots of schools have community groups come and higher there
you know, facilities ovals and by sports facilities and things
like that. Do we suddenly you know, ramp that up

(04:45):
and hit the local footy clubs and things like that.
So we're reeling, we're having that conversation now about about
what we kind of cut Ruth.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Has there been any guidance issued from the Department of Education?
Like there they must be here caring very loudly and
clearly at this point in time, as different schools get
their power bills that this is going to be a
nightmare for them. Oh.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Absolutely, they're hearing the message Loud and Claire, and we're
really grateful for the support of the ce Susan Bowden,
who's been very responsive in listening to this, and they've
promised that they will help support schools. What we haven't
seen from government at this stage is what that support
will look like. Are they going to put back the
community service obligations subsidy for schools? Are they going to

(05:31):
provide additional money while school's planned. Will the budgets next
year be bigger? So we're hearing the right things from
the CEE absolutely, but the response in terms of practicality
from government still being worked through and in the meantime
we're having to pay these bills. You know, there's due
dates for these things.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, spot on. Well, look we'll definitely follow this up.
We've got the Chief Minister on the show tomorrow, so
we'll definitely ask about this. Can you give us a
bit more perspective. I don't know whether you've got sort
of details from other schools as well, but you know
how much other schools are seeing an increase as they're
receiving that first power Bill, you know, following on from

(06:09):
these changes.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, absolutely, Katie. So we're we're encouraging our members, so
the school councils to send us their bills and to
you know, so we can understand the full picture. We
don't want to, you know, just because my bill's going up.
Is happening everywhere, so we want the full picture. And
we're seeing almost universal increases in the information we're being shared.
They very you know, significantly. Some are going up by

(06:34):
fifty percent, sixty percent, one hundred and fifty percent, but
we're almost seeing universal increases. So while the impact might
be different, everyone's having to find more money that they
hadn't budgeted for.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
I mean when you say, you know, potentially more than
one hundred percent or fifty percent, what kind of numbers
are we talking like twelve thousand dollars like it is
for you guys.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, sure, twelve thousand, two thousand, five thousand. Yeah, it's varying,
but they're in I mean, some are small, you know,
two hundred dollars, but even that, you know, it's meant
for our kids. So yeah, variable across, but some big,
big numbers that we're seeing.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
I mean, we know that the Commonwealth government increased school
funding from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty nine. To
improve student outcomes. Is that funding now going to have
to go towards these power price increases.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's how fear, Katie. We know, and there's been significant
work to secure that money from the federal government. We
know money doesn't come out of Canber easily for us
in the territory and so that's meant for our kids,
as you said, to help lift those outcomes and help
them thrive. And that's what we want as parents and families, right,
we don't want that money. It's not meant to keep
the lights on. Other money is meant to provide that

(07:47):
really basic essential services. So we're really concerned that you know,
that budget uplift will just get tucked into this kind
of thing.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, So Ruth as the president of nt cogso what
are you calling for?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
So we are calling for a reinstatement of that subsidy.
We don't understand why schools are being treated as commercial customers.
We're looking for the anti government to fully cover these
increases while they're working through the reinstatement of the subsidy
and to ensure that that doesn't come out of that
Commonwealth funding that you mentioned, Katie. We're also a bit

(08:21):
baffled as to why each school has their own agreement
around provision of power. You know, our schools are meant
to teach our kids. They're meant to be you know,
places are learning. Why are they often negotiating all these
electricity bills? So we're really calling for the Department of
Education to act as a central client and cover those negotiations.
Then they can have that heads up if changes are coming,

(08:42):
and they can model what it means and make a
plan for it. So if we have three things, we're
calling for reinstatement of the subsidy, coverage of the bills,
and some efficiency in how these the contracts are negotiated.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
And Ruth, if the government doesn't come to the table
on these calls to action and assistance, yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Look, we'll continue to navigate and continue to share, but
ultimately it's going to hit the school's budgets, so they're
going to have to find that money and it's going
to mean less for our students and less for our kids.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Well, Ruth, look we'll continue the discussion about this. It
was quite the shock to me when I saw the
kind of impact that it's going to be having on
our public schools, and I mean, at the end of
the day, we know that our schools are doing their best,
you know, to juggle budgets as it is, and in
some cases, if you're talking about thousands of dollars increase

(09:33):
sort of per month, it's going to have a huge blow.
It would have a huge blow on any budget, whether
it's a household budget or a business, but it's going
to make it really difficult for those schools. So we'll
continue those discussions. I really appreciate your time this morning.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
No likewise, Katie and Yeah, really appreciate it, and we're
just hoping this can be fixed for our kids.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, Ruth, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Thanks Katie, have a lovely day to you listeners, you too,
Thank you.