Education Minister Dave Hancock, seen in April, said Wednesday's meeting with Alberta school boards was not about budget cuts. (CBC)Education Minister Dave Hancock insisted Wednesday that a private meeting with Alberta school boards and superintendents about next year's budget wasn't about slashing spending.

"I'm not talking about cuts," he said. "I'm talking about how we plan to do education better, and use the resources we have, in difficult fiscal times, to achieve the outcomes we want to achieve.

"I'm not saying there's cuts or there's no cuts ... the process I've started is a pre-budget discussion with the school boards to talk about how we can make best use of our resources."

At the meeting, school officials gave Hancock feedback on what programs are important, and which ones could be dropped, if necessary.

"It was an opportunity for us to provide input to the minister as to things that we feel are very important, priorities at the board level and at the division level," said Nan Bartlett with the Peace River School Division.

"As well as an opportunity for us to offer him some things that maybe are of a lower priority or things that could change and it would give him an opportunity maybe there's some budget cutting or some efficiencies that could be seen in the system."

Bartlett declined to offer more specifics about what was discussed behind closed doors.

Alberta budget at $6.9 billion

The Alberta government is facing a projected deficit that has ballooned to $6.9 billion over the past year.

In late August, the province announced it was cutting $80 million from this year's education budget. Hancock told the school boards they had to cut one per cent from their 2009-10 budget as well as give up about 11 per cent of an accumulated $400-million surplus.

This prompted groups representing Alberta teachers and school councils to launch an ad campaign warning the public of cuts they say could total at least $300 million in 2010.

Hancock disagrees with those numbers and said the campaign is negative and too focused on numbers.