School trustees gather tonight, June 23, for the highly anticipated and dreaded vote on the district's 2010/11 budget that's expected to feature extensive cuts to staff and programs to cover a $17.23 million shortfall. The board will also release a list of schools being considered for closure.

The Vancouver School Board and Ministry of Education have spent weeks waging a battle over provincial education funding and the board's financial management of the district.

Boards must submit balanced budgets by the end of June to meet legislative requirements. They can be fired if the budget is not balanced.

Last Thursday, the VSB submitted a draft balanced budget to education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, which was not significantly different from one proposed in April, to comply with a ministerial directive order. MacDiarmid insisted through the order that the board take "full consideration" of recommendations in comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland's special adviser report unveiled earlier this month.

The damning report criticized the board's performance and estimated the district's actual shortfall was only $11.79 million.

The dispute could put the board at risk of being fired by the minister since it's basing its budget on the $17.23 million figure. Letters back and forth between the two levels of governments have done little to clarify which number should used, although trustees insist their figure reflects generally accepted accounting principles followed by all school boards.

Board chair Patti Bacchus told the Courier Tuesday morning that the education minister hadn't yet reacted to the draft budget. "I'm surprised we haven't heard back from the minister. She was quite adamant about her direction and she wanted to see this draft. We got it in a day early, hoping we wouldn't be at the 11th hour having to do something drastic. If she wants changes, we're waiting to hear," said Bacchus, a Vision Vancouver trustee.

NPA trustee Carol Gibson doesn't think the board will be fired. "I think the minister is likely to let Vancouver get on with its business... unless we do something really stupid. Unless we do something that's outside the parameters of what we should be doing," she said Tuesday morning.

Gibson hasn't seen all the budget details yet and won't say which way she'll vote or how she will argue at Wednesday night's board meeting.

"We have an obligation to submit a balanced budget. I think we can do it. We're doing a number of things that have needed to be done. That's the thing that's been lost in all of this for me--that there are some things that school boards across the province have done and have needed to do to examine how we do business and how we provide service to the population that we're supposed to serve."

Gibson maintains waste and inefficiency in the school district has existed for a long time and that needs to be addressed.

"We've talked about it for years. We've got facilities that are operating with 50 students in them and we should have 145 students in them, which means we're subsidizing every single student in these programs by a significant amount to keep the building open," she said.

noconnor@vancourier.com