The 2010/11 Education budget was yesterday labelled "a charade" by the Opposition.

Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons said it included cuts of millions of dollars to areas when no such cuts were intended. He said the cuts made it apparent there was a last-minute scramble by Finance Minister Paula Cox to balance the budget.

"If this type of financial manipulation occurred with a public company, shareholders, auditors and regulators would have been clamouring for heads to roll," Dr. Gibbons said. "Frankly, Government seems to be making it up as they go along. This episode raises serious questions of where else this practice may have occurred besides Education, and whether the Minister of Finance's national budget is built on a foundation of sand."

Education Minister El James revealed this week that $6 million had been slashed from the budget at the last minute. He said the cuts were taken mostly from salaries for substitute teachers and paraprofessionals.

"We were asked literally a day or two before the Budget book was to go to print to reduce the budget for the Ministry of Education by four percent or $6 million," he told the House of Assembly. "Making changes to the line items in the budget for the Ministry headquarters and the Bermuda College to reduce them by four percent was really straightforward.

"However, a line-by-line four percent reduction of the budget for the Department of Education could not be accomplished in the time available, so we had to target two large cost centres. During the course of the next financial year, we will find savings in our operating and staffing budgets throughout the Department of Education and transfer those savings to the substitute and paraprofessional cost centres."

Dr. Gibbons called the move "unacceptable" and said it made a "mockery of the budget debate process", adding: "How can you bring an Education Ministry budget to Parliament when you know the budget line items do not reflect the actual budget plan and then not be able to state explicitly how you will correct it and where the $4 to $5 million in cuts will actually come from?"

He continued: "The Budget debate is supposed to provide the opportunity for Members of Parliament to scrutinise the Government's Budget and get a clear explanation of how taxpayers' money will be spent in the coming fiscal year.

"What happened [Monday] in the Education Ministry presentation makes a mockery of the Budget debate process. During the House debate I referred to it as a 'charade'."

The Opposition MP said it was "clear" that Ms Cox was "scrambling at the last minute to look for cuts" to balance the Budget.

"But that was more than three weeks ago," he added. "Surely by now, if the $4 million-plus in education cuts are real and not a sham, the Minister of Education would have been able to tell us from which specific programmes they will come. That's what a meaningful debate requires and what transparency is all about."

Meanwhile, Mr. James sent out a statement yesterday afternoon claiming his Ministry's budget was finalised before February 4 after meeting with Ms Cox on January 21.

He said: "I made my case as eloquently as possible, but the Finance Minister explained her position and was steadfast, and we understood her position. While she appreciated the challenges that we faced, we would have to live within our means and find a way to reduce our budget without sacrificing the quality of the delivery of service. "Our financial team then went back to work making adjustments to the budget. As I explained on Monday, we were able to make line item adjustments to the budgets for the Ministry Headquarters and the Bermuda College grant."

Mr. James said his Ministry submitted the revised budget figures on January 25 and asked Ms Cox if they could make further adjustments during the year, to which she agreed.