In writing about school funding cuts imposed by the province, Geoff Johnson did not name the school district, but it’s clear he was referring to the Saanich School District, part of which is in my constituency.
The school board has requested the province to reverse two key decisions preventing the district from balancing its 2016-17 budget without further cutting programs and services.
The province will claw back into general revenues the $700,000 of administrative savings achieved by the district, rather than re-allocating these funds to classroom services. The province will download an additional $284,000 for a new provincial Internet network, resulting in a tenfold cost increase for this basic service.
The parent advisory councils for the school district are also calling on the minister of education to reverse these damaging decisions.
After years of staffing and program cuts, and six school closures in Saanich School District, these latest actions by the province are neither fair nor defensible. And remember that last year, the B.C. Liberal government cut taxes by $230 million a year for the top two per cent of income earners in B.C.
I applaud the Saanich school board and parent advisory councils for taking this principled position and I call on the Minister of Education to do the right thing — stop the downloading and avoid further cuts to our public education system.
Gary Holman
MLA, Saanich North and the Islands
