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Province to pick up tab for public school teachers’ pay raises

The B.C. government will cover the costs of negotiated wage increases for public school teachers and has no plans to pass those expenses on to school districts, the education minister said Wednesday.
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The B.C. government will cover the costs of negotiated wage increases for public school teachers and has no plans to pass those expenses on to school districts, the education minister said Wednesday.

Peter Fassbender said school boards will still be on the hook for deals with custodians, bus drivers, educational assistants and other support staff. But the provincial government will pick up the tab for its proposed 10-year agreement with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation.

“The province is going to be responsible for those costs on [teachers’] salary and benefits and all of those things,” he said.

“Those will be the key cost drivers that the province is negotiating. We will be responsible for those costs now and in the future, and we do not intend to transfer those to local school districts.”

It’s a different story for support staff who have been without a wage increase for four years and are seeking a raise of two per cent a year over two years.

Talks resume next week amid threats of a possible walkout, and Fassbender has sent school boards a letter telling them to develop “savings plans” to cover possible, but unspecified, cost increases.

The letter said boards have to find the savings without harming “core educational services.”

That’s a departure from a similar directive to boards last December that told them to find savings without “reducing service levels” or “transferring costs to the public.”

Asked if the change in wording means boards now have a free hand to transfer costs to the public or cut non-core services, Fassbender said: “The answer’s no.”

He offered little insight, however, into how the Education Ministry expects school districts to find money within already lean budgets. Fassbender said only that his staff will help the districts look for “efficiencies” and “shared services opportunities.”

Greater Victoria board chairwoman Peg Orcherton questioned how her district will find the money given that government grants consistently fail to keep pace with the rising cost of utilities, medical service plan premiums, pension adjustments and other inflationary expenses.

“Our board has not made any decisions at this time,” she said. “We just know we’ve got a heckuva challenge in front of us, because we have been cutting, cutting, cutting. And we’re feeling the effects of those cuts administratively.

“The staff are doing their utmost to manage those, and have been able to, but how long do you continue to do more with less?”

Fassbender’s letter to boards said his staff would be calling secretary-treasurers to suggest areas where savings might be found.

He told reporters that a number of boards have already found savings but did not identify them or elaborate on how they did it.

“I’m not going to impose anything on them,” he said. “I think they need to continue to do the work that they’re doing with our ministry staff.”

Fassbender said he remains optimistic that a deal can be reached with support workers without disrupting classes.

“We have one plan,” he said. “That is to come to a settlement, to avoid any disruption. That’s the goal and that’s what the negotiators are going to do at the table.”

lkines@timescolonist.com