Powell River Board of Education Chair Jeanette Scott did not mince words in her response to Premier Christy Clark’s suggestion that school districts go after “the low-hanging fruit” of blended administrative programs to save taxpayers money.
The recent BC Liberal budget directed the province to cut $29 million this year and another $25 million next year from ministry of education funding for the province’s 60 school districts.
Scott said that while an exact dollar figure was not possible at this point, School District 47 administrators estimate it could mean there is as much as $100,000 less each of the following years.
“As I considered the various difficult decisions that we have made during my five terms in office, it seemed to me that the metaphor of ‘low-hanging fruit’ was particularly inappropriate, even offensive,” Scott said in her remarks at the recent school board meeting. “Faced with ongoing declining enrolment and significant budget restraints, this board has to take a ladder in order to reach the topmost branches and, in fact, is now preparing to crawl out on the most precarious limbs in search of any unripened wormy bits that many have alluded us in our earlier harvest.”
Clark suggested school boards follow the example of health authorities and blend administrative programs. According to Teresa Rezansoff, BC School Trustees’ Association president, this is already something many districts have been doing to save money on administration costs, in a struggle to keep districts running.
Scott added that over the years the district has not only closed and sold schools to reduce operating costs, it has also cut back on school administrators and staff and pursued a number of “shared service” initiatives. These include adopting the use of purchase cards, sharing Workers’ Compensation Board claims management with Kelowna School District, participating in group benefits buying, cell and landline phone contracts, photocopy equipment as well as participating in a provincial technology services provider.
“Anyone who has ever been a student or teacher knows that punishing the whole class for the bad behaviour of one or two students is never an effective way to enhance student learning,” she said. “To withhold funding from districts such as ours, where, for so many years, every effort has been made to be financially responsible, is simply wrong-headed.”
