The Vancouver School Board’s secretary-treasurer Rick Krowchuk said Thursday morning the board hadn’t decided whether it would cancel its contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to review the district’s revenues and expenses.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender has claimed he didn’t know the VSB had hired the firm, also known as PwC, when he appointed EY, formerly Ernst and Young, to serve as special adviser on the Vancouver School Board’s budget, and offered to cover costs related to PwC.
Kevin Brennan, senior vice president at EY, the firm that served as receiver on the financially troubled Olympic Village project, is to submit a draft report to Fassbender by May 31.
Fassbender surprised the VSB by announcing March 12 that it would appoint an adviser. NPA VSB chairperson Christopher Richardson says the education ministry knew the board had recently hired PwC to undertake similar work. The board rehired PwC to study how far the VSB has progressed in implementing PwC’s recommendations from 2012, comment on the proposed balanced budget and identify additional new savings.
Fassbender appointed a special adviser after learning the VSB projects a minimum $15 million budget shortfall for 2015-2016, according to a press release from the education ministry.
“Over the past two decades, the Vancouver Board of Education has publicly forecasted large deficits but has consistently ended the school year with a surplus,” the government press release states. “As of June 30, 2014, they held an accumulated surplus of $28.4 million, which is the equivalent to six per cent of total district expenditures.”
Brennan is to lead a team that will consider:
• the VSB’s budget development and forecasting,
• accumulated surpluses and deficits,
• management of assets including all buildings, leases and real estate,
• opportunities for administrative savings, and board governance.
The adviser is also to review similar reports provided to the board or the minister over the past five years and actions taken.
Krowchuk doesn’t expect a review by EY or PwC to greatly influence the district’s 2015-2016 budget.
“I suspect both reports might be move towards longer-term issues,” he told the Courier on the morning of March 16. “It is coming in a little bit late in the process.”
Krowchuk said the board had requested at least a preliminary verbal report from PwC before it makes final budget decisions April 30.
The provincial School Act requires school boards to submit balanced budgets to the ministry by June 30, but the VSB makes budget decisions by April 30 to advise unions and administrators about staffing changes for September before the summer break.
The provincial government’s Office of the Comptroller General reviewed the VSB’s budget procedures in 2010 and recommended closing schools, including representatives from the private sector on the VSB’s finance committee and revealed (ongoing) misunderstandings about VSB surpluses, said Krowchuk.
Former Vision Vancouver school board chairperson Patti Bacchus said March 12 that Fassbender’s claim about an accumulated surplus of $28.4 million was misleading because most of the money was allocated, just not spent, on that date.
Krowchuk reported to the District Parent Advisory Council in late February that 90 per cent of the school board’s $492.5 million in revenue in its preliminary budget for 2014-2015 hailed from the provincial government. Of the VSB’s expenditures, 72 per cent covers salaries, 20 per cent goes to employee benefits, seven per cent goes to services, supplies and utilities and three per cent is directed elsewhere, mostly to the purchase of capital assets.
Richardson did not return the Courier’s calls.
