Painful cuts plague B.C. school districts
By: Brennan Clarke
BC Globe and Mail
Jun. 23, 2009

Students in the Saanich school district will be cleaning out their desks and heading off on vacation this week, but it won't be a carefree summer for the administrators and board members charged with cutting $3.6-million from their budget.

Last month, Saanich trustees approved the 5-per-cent cut to its overall budget, the largest annual reduction in district history.

If nothing changes in the provincial government's updated budget this fall, the district will start the 2009-10 school year with 23.5 fewer full-time teaching positions, only one-third of which can be attributed to declining enrolment.

Deep cuts will also affect clerical workers, education assistants, social workers, career programs, field trips, school supplies and even crossing guards.

…The painful, cost-cutting decisions in Saanich this spring were duplicated to varying degree in dozens of school districts across the province.

Surrey, the province's largest school district, battled a $9.5-million shortfall. In Vancouver, the number was $7.1-million. North Vancouver and Central Okanagan, both medium-sized districts, each had to find $3-million in savings.

Staff at the B.C. Ministry of Education said the government actually increased district funding by $84-million for 2009-10, despite an enrolment decline of about 7,000 students provincewide.

But critics say education costs, driven mainly by built-in wage hikes, are increasing far more quickly than government funding.

Last year, the province topped up school district funding by $122-million, but teachers' wages alone increased by $137-million, said B.C. Teachers' Federation president Irene Lanzinger.

She estimated between 500 and 550 full-time teaching positions will be lost this year, mostly to retirement and attrition.

"What we're seeing is the cumulative effect of underfunding over many years," Ms. Lanzinger said. "The decline in teachers has certainly outpaced the decline in enrolment."

Victoria trustee Micheal McEvoy, also vice-president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, said his board has been relying on reserve funds and savings from school closings to be able to balance its books for the past "three or four" years….

Surrey School District chair Laurae McNally agreed, saying: "There is no secret money hidden under any rocks anywhere."

The Central Okanagan School District avoided major cuts to education services by implementing a user-pay busing system that's expected to generate $1-million a year, said board chair Rolli Cacchioni.

A survey by the Centre for Civic Governance, a Vancouver-based social-advocacy group, estimates the cost of operating the province's 60 school districts will exceed government funding by about $132-million this year.