This Vancouver School Board thing is going to get pretty messy before it is over. And at this point I suspect it will not end well for the board.
It has been just over 30 years since the provincial government last tossed Vancouver school trustees out for refusing meet their legislated obligation to pass a balanced budget.
Social Credit was the provincial government; it was that era’s rendition of a Liberal-Conservative coalition we now see being led by Christy Clark. Like now, there was a provincial election not that far away. And the Vancouver School Board, then dominated by the left-leaning COPE, had a great deal of public support in its demand for more funding from Victoria to cover a deficit. The decision was made by the province that the best way to dilute their political impact was to give them the boot.
Folks will recall that, once the government-appointed administrator had done his cutting to produce a balanced budget and there was a byelection for school board, COPE picked up all nine seats.
But so what? The damage (or corrections) had taken place for the Vancouver school system and the Social Credit had a smooth run winning a majority in Victoria.
Now, with a couple of significant exceptions, we find ourselves in that position again.
Unlike the last time, the city, now led by Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, has taken the highly unusual decision to wade into the fray to support a school board majority led by Vision chairman Mike Lombardi. This will not win Robertson any friends in Victoria.
And before the Minister of Education moves to unload the school trustees, he has called for — yet another — “forensic audit and full review of the Vancouver School Board.”
In a statement following a unanimous motion at city council last week, including Vision, the NPA and the sole Green Party councillor, the mayor issued a statement making a couple of points. In what he refers to as the “most complex of all districts in the province,” cutting another $21.4 million to balance the budget “is too deep to support the learning needs of Vancouver’s children and youth.”
He also notes that city taxpayers submit $15 million more out of their property taxes to support schools than they get back. So there.
The forensic audit requested by the minister serves two purposes. It buys the provincial government some time and it will, they are assuming, provide the minister with more ammunition to justify dumping the school board.
There is some risk in doing this when you consider the proximity of the provincial election and the fact that the dozen schools the board has been encouraged to shut down are mostly on the East Side of town. This puts at least one Liberal MLA, Vancouver-Fraserview’s Suzanne Anton, in the voters’ cross hairs.
There has, of course, been a difference of opinion expressed over what the right path for the board to take should be. There is the crowd that says they should just make whatever cuts are necessary and balance the budget, like most every other school board in the province.
NPA trustees on the board ultimately support that view. In an email to supporters sent by trustee Stacy Robertson, they would also want to first reduce the deficit by selling of a chunk of real estate — the Kingsgate Mall — for a partial fix of what is clearly a structural problem. That means while the mall will be gone, the budget shortfall will be there again next year.
Meanwhile, the District Parent Advisory Council applauds the board majority for rejecting the proposed balanced budget. They lay the blame for the shortfall in funding on the province. When it comes to per capita funding of education, British Columbia is near the bottom of the provincial pile.
There is one other wrinkle that could affect the province’s next move, as well as the school board’s structural deficit. In November, there will be a hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation versus the Government of B.C.
This case dates back to 2002 when then Education Minister Christy Clark shredded the teachers’ contract and removed the right for teachers to negotiate class size and composition, as well as changing the funding formula for boards.
If the teachers win — well let’s just see what the decision is first.
@allengarr
