Fear in schools and institutes before the arrival of the cold: “Right now it is unfeasible to pay the heating bill”

While the public secondary schools are the ones who pay the bills with the items they receive from the regional administration, in the public nursery and primary schools the municipalities are directly in charge of this expense Filling a tank with diesel for heating in a center Madrid with 800 students cost 10,000 euros until last year, but from now on, it could become 50% more expensive The energy saving and efficiency plan approved by the Government does not include educational centers, which can lower the air conditioning of 27 degrees and exceeding 19 heating The directors of the secondary institutes the accounts do not come out. Convinced that, with the arrival of the cold, the bill they pay thanks to the budget item for heating that they receive from the regional administration is going to skyrocket, they still do not know how they are going to do it. For now, it has the same budget that was approved in January before the energy crisis broke out. And with that it does not come to them. “Right now assuming the increase in the price of both electricity and diesel is unfeasible,” acknowledges Esteban Álvarez, president of the Madrid secondary school directors at the head of the Adimad association. There is little less than a month left for the Madrid institutes to fill their diesel tanks for heating. Filling one of these tanks in a center with 800 students cost 10,000 euros until last year, but from now on, it could be 50% more expensive. And you have to fill it twice a year. “Until now, a situation as worrying as this has never occurred because electricity and fuel prices have never risen so suddenly,” Álvarez acknowledges. “These days the weather is good, but in November the temperatures will start to drop and then we will have to ask for money,” he adds. Toni González Picornell, president of the federation of associations of directors of public institutes throughout Spain, admits that they are “concerned” about the possibility that the centers will find themselves in a “complex budgetary” situation. “We have to be very careful in reviewing the status of each center to avoid that they do not have a budget to pay these expenses,” he says. In most of the autonomous communities, secondary schools have an annual budget for heating that they receive or in two parts either quarterly or monthly. Each administration stipulates the budget that it delivers to each institute based on several factors: the area where the center is located (whether it is colder or not), number of students enrolled, shifts, or square meters of the building. “There are centers that are going to be able to support these expenses, because some months they have not spent the entire item, but in others it will be impossible,” says González Picornell, who acknowledges that they have already transmitted this concern to the administrations. The energy saving and efficiency plan approved by the Government to reduce energy consumption does not include educational centers, which can lower the air conditioning to 27 degrees in summer and exceed 19 heating in winter. Centers that ask for an advance At the moment, 5% of the centers in the Valencian Community have asked the Ministry to advance them money to be able to pay electricity and heating bills. In addition, in some communities, the Administration has indicated to the centers that they request an exceptional item. “The problem is that this game must be claimed and then approved. In addition, it takes a while for the money to reach the centers”, says González Picornell. Álvarez also admits that they have spoken with the Madrid Ministry of Education and they have recognized that it is an issue that they will have to study depending on how prices rise. “If there is an increase in costs, that increase has to be assumed by the Administration. The solution is to allocate an exceptional budget, because this year is exceptional, to cover the increase in the cost of electricity and diesel,” he points out. Municipalities pay the bill for infant and primary schoolsIn public infant and primary schools the problem is of a different nature. These centers do not directly pay bills for any supplies. In fact, they don’t even see the bills. The municipalities are in charge of that, which include the energy accounts of these centers in the municipal buildings chapter. “Our fear is based on the cuts that the municipalities can apply. They have the ball,” says Vicent Mañes, president of the largest Spanish federation of associations of directors of public nursery and primary schools, Fedeip. they have had to turn on the heating, which is diesel, on the coldest days this fall. In winter they reach temperatures of -8 or -9 degrees and you have to keep it on all the time. Here also the cost of heating is assumed by the City Council. The center currently has 28 children from 0 to 3 years old. Four of them are babies. Last year they spent 5,000 litres. They paid 0.70 euros for it, but this year the price has risen, “if it doesn’t go any higher,” to 1.40 euros, according to the mayor of Macedas, Rubén Quintas. They will go from paying around 3,500 euros for diesel to 6,000 or 7,000, which for a small town like Macedas is a lot of money. “We will have to remove it from other budget items,” acknowledges the mayor. “For a city council like ours, this increase is a major setback. We deal with budget items and this means that we have to take money from other things (sports or culture) to be able to afford the expense. What I am not going to do in any way is to reduce the consumption of heating. I don’t care what temperature the Government sets, they are babies and very young children and the heating will be set to the temperature set by the teachers”, he assures.