Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons has alleged the Ministry of Education is being "vague" as to how they were able to cut their budget by four percent.

During the budget debate in March, Education Minister El James told the House of Assembly his Ministry was forced to cut the budget by $6 million which had been slashed from the budget at the last minute.

He said the cuts were taken mostly from salaries for substitute teachers and paraprofessionals. "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."

Mr. James said the savings would be found in various parts of the Department. Dr. Gibbons submitted parliamentary questions to find out exactly what cuts Mr. James made to reflect the four percent but was disappointed with the answers.

"The vague answers given clearly suggest that the Ministry of Education is still unable to show exactly where the four percent reduction will come from even though it was promised three months ago.

"The $833,000 reduction in the College budget was presented in March and this hasn't changed. It's not clear from the answers whether the decreases in the substitutes,11, and paraprofessional, 15, staffing is compared to last year or their inflated 2010/11 budget levels.

"However these head count reductions are still insufficient to account for the required $4.1m reduction and we're left with a broad promise from the Minister to find budgetary savings in a range of other areas, but nothing concrete."

Dr. Gibbons continued: "It's still a charade and it clearly demonstrates why the Minister of Finance has been ineffective in getting Ministries to find savings and trim their budgets.

"We've had an unprecedented two deficit budgets in a row from the Minister of Finance and it must be obvious to all that unless the Government gets serious about controlling its expenses and trimming its spending that both taxes and debt will continue to increase with damaging consequences for both individuals and businesses in Bermuda."

But Mr. James aid his Ministry provided Dr. Gibbons with the information he asked for.

"It's interesting to note that he's saying it's vague. We can only answer what we're asked. He didn't ask for anything really and we gave him more than he asked for.

"He asked for no specifics whatsoever. We have nothing to hide from him and we gave him what he asked for."

As far as the changes, Mr. James said the further education awards was reduced by $131,093 and one administrative post would not be filled. He added the budget for the Department of Education was reduced by $5,036,016 and the savings were evident in reducing staff, consultants, advertising, communication costs, energy conservation and not filling vacant posts that are critical.