The ACT's school budgets are grappling with ageing infrastructure and high staff wages, an inquiry has heard, hours after a report blasting the territory government's spending decisions was released.
A Legislative Assembly inquiry into the ACT's fiscal sustainability, which was established after the Greens and Liberals forced the government's hand in late 2025, heard from the education minister and directorate officials on Tuesday, May 19.
On Tuesday, economist Saul Eslake delivered his findings that the ACT government's "conscious policy decisions" to spend on services and infrastructure without raising revenue had led to the territory's deteriorating financial position.
The ACT "ought to be able to spend less" per capita on education and health, he said in a preliminary report.
In his final report, Mr Eslake raised concerns about the cost of Canberra's secondary college system, which he said "almost certainly entails higher unit costs".
However, Education Minister Yvette Berry later told the inquiry hearing the success of the college system was "pretty proven".
"That the college system that we have operating in the ACT is more expensive because it's not part of the school system, we accept that, but we think it also achieves the outcomes for young people," she said.
"In fact other school systems and school ministers, and indeed the federal government, have often reflected on the success of our college system."
ACT Greens leader Jo Clay challenged Ms Berry on the government's forward estimates predicting a staff wage increase of 3 per cent, arguing increasing inflation had pushed the target out of reach.
"We're still negotiating our enterprise agreement, there is a government pay offer at the moment on the table which is roughly 3 per cent per year... obviously any commitments that we make as part of that agreement have to be funded and agreed by government," Ms Berry said.
Education Directorate chief operating officer David Matthews defended the government's high expenditure on schools, saying the ACT was the only jurisdiction in Australia meeting the school resourcing standard.
"One of the unique things about employment in Canberra is the public sector sets the benchmark for salaries... and we have to make sure that we appropriately remunerate teachers," he said.
Maintaining and replacing the ACT's schools' ageing infrastructure was also a cost to the directorate, he said, as well as legacy superannuation arrangements from the Commonwealth.
"Most of our schools were built before self-government, for example, and are getting to that age," Mr Matthews said.
"Everything before Tuggeranong was formed was essentially a legacy of the Commonwealth government and our oldest school is 100 years old."
Mr Matthews also acknowledged that the directorate had received $43 million in the mid-year budget review after it exceeded its budget in 2025.
"The work that we've been collectively doing with our school leaders, our business managers, is that we are tracking within that budget," he said.
The mid-year budget released in February 2026 showed the ACT was expected to post a $499.1 million deficit this financial year after the deficit blew out to $1.1 billion in 2024-25.
