Scouts worried about effect of school board rental increase: Group warns it would be forced to cut back activities
Vancouver Sun
July 2, 2010
By Janet Steffenhagen

Scouts Canada is warning the Vancouver board of education that a plan to boost rental fees for public-school space, to bring them into line with rates charged by other Metro school districts, would have a deleterious effect on its programs and the boys and girls it serves.

If the proposed increase is approved by trustees, Scouts and Girl Guides groups would see their rental rates rise from $25 a year to several hundred dollars, depending on the location. The increase is expected to be phased in over three years….

Scouts and guides are among several groups, including daycare provides, upset by proposals to hike rental fees, which lag behind those levied by other districts. Richmond, which charges the most, collects $19 per hour.

A recommendation for higher rents was part of a recent report by comptroller-general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, who was assigned by the provincial government to review the board's budget. She said Vancouver trustees had kept rental rates artificially low to support community and educational groups and hadn't approved an increase since at least 2005.

"The lost revenue through this subsidy would otherwise be available to support ... educational services," she concluded.

That didn't sit well with groups that will have to pay the higher price. Child care operators said rent increases would mean higher fees for families, and many can't afford to pay more.

Nor did it meet the approval of the City of Vancouver. "Child care is already fragile and ... unaffordable for many parents," Carol Ann Young, the city's senior social planner, says in a brief to trustees. "[It] should not be seen as a revenue source for education."….