There is something pungently rotten about the way Learning Minister Andrew Thomson has handled the school tax issue. First, the repeated assertions by the Minister and other members of cabinet that the school tax problem would be addressed have proven to be false.

Then there was Thomson's manipulative scheming to bring Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) and Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) to support the government's fight for more equalization handouts from the federal government. The equalization program transfers tax dollars from "have" provinces (Alberta and Ontario) to "have not" provinces so they can provide comparable government services.

What SUMA and SARM may not have realized is that the real motivation behind the government's equalization belly-aching is to provide a scapegoat for the province not doing anything on school taxes or any other problems dimly related to money.

For SARM and SUMA, not supporting the fight for a better equalization deal would be like not supporting the Roughriders in October. However, Thomson's duplicitous linkage between school tax reductions and increased equalization payments must make SARM and SUMA want to take a long, cold shower.

The folly in all this is that there might never be a change to the equalization formula - certainly not till 2007. And even if there were a change that would somehow benefit Saskatchewan, we will have to be a "have not" province in order to receive it. Believe it or not, at the rate we're going with $35 dollar oil, we won't get a dime of equalization money. Those who have rested their hopes for school tax relief on increased equalization have purchased a big bag of magic beans.

This all comes as fallout from the $600,000 Commission on Funding K-12 Education, chaired by long-time educator Ray Boughen, which turned out to be little more than NDP electioneering. The purpose of the commission was to appear to be doing something in the lead-up to the provincial election, rather than actually doing something.

The establishment of the commission silenced those concerned about school taxes long enough to prevent it from becoming a noisy election issue. It allowed the NDP to make vague statements about how the province's fiscal situation had room to accept recommendations aimed at lowering school taxes.

Government optimism about the future of provincial finances petered out the day after they were re-elected. That's the same day that braying about equalization-short-changing-Saskatchewan began in earnest.

In January, Ray Boughen released his report recommending significant reductions to school taxes over the next five years and an offsetting increase in the PST. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) opposed his recommendations on the grounds that people need pure tax relief - not just different forms of taxation. However, had the commission's recommendations been implemented to the word, we'd be better off than we are now.

After all this hand wringing, public protest and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on public consultation, we're exactly where we were 15 years ago. In his official response to the Boughen Commission, Minister Thomson simply dusted off a 1991 study and recommended forced school board amalgamation.

Mr. Thomson doesn't specify how much money we'll save or which boards will amalgamate - that's up to another committee. Regardless of the outcome of amalgamation, without a windfall of magic beans, we won't see a penny of school tax relief.