B.C.’s Liberal government is lying to taxpayers about how it’s funding public education and it’s time provincial politicians come clean about the kind of money that’s really needed to run local schools, according to Central Okanagan Teachers’ Association president Alice Reece.

“They can stop their blatant misrepresentation of money,” Reece said Wednesday night, following a Central Okanagan school trustees committee meeting.

During the meeting, local superintendent Hugh Gloster explained how a $4.68 million shortfall in funding from the province would impact public education in the Central Okanagan in the 2010-2011 budget.

Gloster told trustees that provincial funding for the Central Okanagan School District would actually be $2.96 million greater in 2010-2011 than 2009-2010. The local funding would come from the Liberal government’s promised $112 million increase for public schools across B.C. for the next school year, he stated.

However, Gloster said the additional funding would be inadequate in the Central Okanagan because it wouldn’t cover increases in the school district’s operational costs. Those costs are expected to rise $7.64 million, including $2.23 million to implement the provincially mandated full-day kindergarten classes starting in September and another $2.84 million to cover provincially negotiated wage and benefit increases for teachers coming into effect next school year.

In order to cover the shortfall, more than 50 programs and services must be eliminated or scaled back in September. The equivalent of 17 full time teaching positions and 22 full time support staff jobs would be lost throughout the district as a result….

In the meantime, board chairman Rolli Cacchioni said he would head to Victoria where he hoped to meet with B.C. Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid first thing Friday morning and spell out the impacts of the provincial funding shortfall….

As for Reece, she noted that provincial funding shortfalls to local education have now occurred for three consecutive years and would amount to more than $12 million by the end of the 2010-2011 school year.

“Every single thing in this district has now been cut beyond the bone and now they’re cutting some more,” Reece continued. “People are working double time to meet the needs of kids right now from past cuts. This budget will be asking them to work even harder and I don’t know how much more they can give.”

Reece said if the provincial government continues to short change public education in the Central Okanagan the system is going to start crumbling….