VANCOUVER - The Vancouver school board should close 19 schools to improve its financial situation, says a special adviser’s report by Ernst & Young.
The report makes 52 findings and 59 recommendations. It says the VSB’s finances could improve by $750 million in one-time savings and $72 million a year in ongoing savings and revenues,
The report says closing schools could save up to $37 million per year and generate between $250 and $750 million in one-time savings. This is clearly related to specific school properties because there is a note that refers to BC Assessment values before selling costs and taxes, but specific schools are not identified.
The Vancouver Sun reported earlier this year that there are more than 9,000 empty seats in Vancouver schools, the vast majority of them on the city’s east side, where a few schools are less than half full. In all, 36 of the city’s 110 schools are less than three-quarters full. Of those, just three are on the city’s west side.
When looking at numbers of empty seats, rather than capacity percentages, the most spaces are found at some of the city’s east side high schools. Tupper, Templeton, and Gladstone secondaries each have more than 450 spots that aren’t filled.
The Ministry of Education’s target is that a school should be 95-per-cent full.
The issue of closing schools has been on the table all year, with the new school trustees voting to not continue a previous moratorium on school closures last year and the discovery that a 2020 deadline announced a decade ago to upgrade all of the province’s schools at high-risk during a major earthquake has now been pushed back to 2030.
Many of the schools with low enrolment are in need of seismic upgrading, but have not yet been approved by the province to proceed with upgrades, the analysis of student numbers shows.
The report says 16 of Vancouver’s 69 schools requiring seismic upgrades could be avoided if the 19 schools were closed. This would save $150 million. Maintenance costs of about $100 million would also be avoided.
The Vancouver school board hired their own auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to help with its budget. That report also supported the board’s decision to close 28 classrooms next year and lease out empty space to try to reduce its budget shortfall.
The VSB has also balanced its budget this year, after initially facing a $15-million shortfall. The board wrote a letter to the province on Feb. 17 warning of this shortfall, which Fassbender said prompted him to appoint the special advisor.
The board warned in its letter that balancing its books as required by the province would “result in significant cuts to a system that has already seen substantial reductions to programs, services and staff over the last number of years.”
The balanced budget includes cuts to adult education, band and strings and other programs.
