School officials in the capital region expressed shock Wednesday at a B.C. government plan to trim K-12 administrative expenses by $54 million over the next two years.
The strategy, announced in the provincial budget, will likely cost the Greater Victoria school district $1 million this year alone, board chairwoman Edith Loring-Kuhanga said Wednesday.
“We’ve really carved away the staff at the board office for a long time,” she said. “So does that mean that there’s going to be further cuts there when they’re already running on bare bones?”
The Saanich district, meanwhile, likely faces a $500,000 cut in 2015-16 with more to come the following year, board chairwoman Victoria Martin said.
“It’s a completely unexpected two-year hit,” she said. “It’s not that school boards have any excess sitting anywhere. … So we were really dismayed and surprised and disappointed.”
Tuesday’s budget added $149 million to the K-12 budget to cover the labour deal with teachers and expand the Learning Improvement Fund that provides extra resources to deal with complex classrooms. It also calls for districts across B.C. to find savings of $29 million in 2015-16 and a further $25 million in 2016-17 and future years.
Government expects districts to confine their administrative savings “to non-instructional budgets” and avoid any impact on classrooms, documents say.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender said the plan should come as no surprise to districts. “I’m confident that, working closely with them as we have been, that we will be able to find that half of one per cent in a $5-billion-plus budget.”
Fassbender was vague, however, about where he expects districts to find the money. Budget documents note that colleges and universities trimmed $50 million over three years through “joint procurement for some goods and services, negotiating lower banking and credit card fees, efficiencies in information technology” and other reductions.
Fassbender suggested districts work together provincially, regionally or in groups to find similar savings. He did not rule out the possibility of layoffs.
“I’m not going to presume any of the outcomes at this stage,” he said.
Martin said Saanich would be unable to save $500,000 solely by working with other districts to find efficiencies.
“It just doesn’t compute,” she said. “I respectfully appreciate the minister’s perspective. We would say that that is a huge hit for Saanich, and we’re not going to gain that in shared services.”
She also said districts will have to absorb the cost of rising Medical Services Plan premiums and hydro rate increases.
“There’s no recognition of the cost pressures of those in this budget at all,” she said. “So you begin to get in a situation where you’ve got no flexibility at all.”
