School Board set to sharpen the pencils in bid to zero out deficit..

School District 52's preliminary budget with its declared deficit of $62,375 thus far, shows that there still is the need for some budgetary accounting to be done, as the school district moves towards providing its final document of a balanced budget as mandated by the province.

The Northern View outlined some of the troublesome issues that the school district is facing in its quest to balance that budget, with an estimated overall enrollment decline of 198 students there will be a funding shortfall from this current year and with 31 project proposals received by May 6th there will be the need to factor in over 1.5 million dollars in costing to run those proposals.

The announcement of the deficit and the continuing examination of how to get closer to that balanced budget, will no doubt increase the anxiety for some of those residents who have been concerned over recent happenings at the School District.

The recent departure of former Superintendent Eric Mercer appears likely to once again become a lightning rod for those concerned about the School Districts recent moves, the cost of his departure, combined with the need to hire a replacement for the remainder of the school term may seem like an expense that in light of current fiscal troubles, might have been handled differently.

Likewise, the start up costs of the Pacific Coast School may once again be put under the microscope, with residents wondering about the need to lease a building in the downtown core, as opposed to utilizing one of the recently closed elementary schools of the east end as the home for the former alternative school.

Both are issues that in times of financial concern, may once again flare up as requiring a bit more accounting for than has been recently provided by the School District board.

The next step in the process for the School District comes up at the May 25th meeting of the Advisory Budget Committee meeting, at which time the District will bring along its thoughts on such issues as what the priorities and cost all of the projects will be, as well as the determinations of final staffing levels and class size and composition for the upcoming year.

The School District must have its final budget plans in place and deliver its balanced budget by the June 9th meeting. We suspect that there will be much in the way of public debate to come over how they reach their final numbers for 2009-10.

Budget shortfall means wide ranging job cuts at School District 52

With 2 million dollars no longer in the Prince Rupert School District budget, job losses are on the horizon at SD 52.

It’s anticipated that job reductions will be implement across the system from teaching to support, as well as administration and management staff.

Faced with declining enrollment, collective agreement arrangements, an elimination of the previous surplus and a reduction in funding from Victoria, the local School district is left to face perhaps one of its most dire of circumstances in many years.

The Daily News featured the latest developments in Thursday’s paper with a front page story.

JOBS ON THE LINE AS SCHOOL DISTRICT MULLS $2M SHORTFALL
Needing to save cash, jobs are top of the list of items to cut says district
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Pages one and two

With decreased funding and budget challenges, School District 52 will be removing nearly $2 million from its spending on wages, benefits, service and supplies during the 2008-09 fiscal year.

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School District 52 Secretary-Treasurer Kim Morris sent out a press release to local media this week that confirmed the district will experience a serious budget shortfall for the upcoming school year, as it attempts to build a budget with only 95 per cent of the previous year’s funding.

“Since all school district’s wages and benefits consume anywhere between 80 per cent to 95 per cent of a school district’s budget, the cuts will be made heavily to wages, and in fact jobs,” said Morris’ report.

“There is some natural reduction in work force as a result of declining enrollment but not enough to nearly cover the shortfall.

“School closure savings have been committed to enhance programs and will not be included in the district’s plant to meet its budget shortfall,”

The district’s workforce will be reduced at all employee group levels,, including teaching, support, administration and management staff, and will affect the local International Union of Operating Engineers, Prince Rupert District Teachers’ Union, the Prince Rupert Principal’s Association and exempt staff at the board office.

The situation is one that School District 52 has not had to deal with before, a result of declining enrollment, collective agreement increases, surplus elimination and funding shortfalls.

Although SD52 receives the same $25,209,564 Operating Grant for 2008-09 as it did this year, after removing the $3,026,459 Labour Settlement Grant from the equation, the district is working with less money to accomplish its goals than in the past and is not receiving “funding protection” on 99 per cent of last year’s budget.

What SD52 will be working to accomplish during the coming months is the balancing of the 2007-08 budget, reducing the effect of cuts on students in classrooms, looking for additional efficiency, continuing with plans for the alternate education program, and starting to project the possible shortfall for 2009-10.

Senior management is encouraging all interested parties to attend the next Advisory Budget Committee meeting on Wed, May 28, which will be held at the Meeting Place across the street from the school board office.

The ABC meeting agenda and supporting documentation is available at the school board office beginning today, Thurs. May 22.

Anyone wishing to view other pertinent information, such as operating grants, budget instructions and other school districts’ funding can visit www.bced.gov.bc.ca/k12funding.

More questions than answers when it comes to School board budget shortfall

With school closures announced over a month ago and now staff layoff notices reportedly issued last week the state of local education is nearing if not already at a crisis point.

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The closures and layoffs, combined with the promise of more tough decisions to come in the weeks to come, makes for a timeline of School District 52’s budget woes that is making for some very interesting conversations around town.

What has yet to be answered by the province is why 1 million dollars in funding was taken away from local school boards. On that vital financial point, there has been little in the way of information for the provinces educational hinterlands from the Ministry of Education out of Victoria, an interesting approach for a government that was once so concerned about that far off stretch of land they once christened as the “heartland of the province”

In Prince Rupert’s case, the reduction in one million dollars eliminated almost overnight a previous surplus of funding locally and put the local school district into a serious financial bind, destined to shed 1 million dollars in salary, with the first casualties reported to be some 40 support staff and at least 18 teachers.

While the province suggests that they are keeping true to the collective agreements across the province, the cuts are being made it seems in other areas of education funding that previously were provided with the required monies, taking from column A, to meet column B we guess on that great spreadsheet somewhere in a bunker in Victoria.

What seems mysterious about it all, is the lack of public input or transparent consultation from the province with local school boards and more importantly the citizens of the province. The province by its moves of late is leaving many hard hit communities across the province holding the bag, a very interesting approach to tending to the needs of those in the "heartland”.

The local MLA for Prince Rupert Gary Coons is collecting the information he needs to take the issue to the Legislature, which is what his job description covers we guess, though it seems these days the governing Liberals aren’t overly inclined to engage in debate let alone provide a reasoned explanation as to their mysterious moves

What seems missing on the local scene however, is a bit of outrage from the local politicians at city hall, who lately seem to frequently miss what's most on the minds of those that elected them it seems. There hasn't been much said out of Council chambers in recent weeks over the Provinces reduction of vital monies on the local scene and the subsequent job losses that will once again add anxiety to the community.

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Instead, the Mayor recounted recently how we're better off than we were five years ago, a concept that seems rather hard to wrap your head around at the moment, what with the state of affairs around town.

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Included on the list over the last five years has been a declining commercial sector, a still underused port, a closed and seemingly never to open again pulp mill, the fishing and forestry industries in crisis, a reduced population and with that, now school closures and layoffs coming.

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It makes for another spin of the economic cycle that will once again have local families making plans for the out migration pattern of the last few years.

While it's true that council has no sway over provincial education (and truth be told have more than enough problems of there own making to deal with) it still is an important local issue that is calling out for leadership on the local front.

Much has been made about the Mayor's cultivated relationships with the governing Liberals in the past, perhaps its time to call in a marker or two and get some straight answers as to what is going on when it comes to education and the effect that government policies are having on local communities.

City Council should be taking charge of the issue as well, making sure that they provide for Victoria a complete picture on how these changes are making for a devastating effect not only on the economy and employment picture in this hard struck community, but more importantly how these cuts and changes are affecting the lives of students in one of the most depressed areas of the province.

Thus far the contribution from the elected local officials has been mute, leaving a void that needs to be filled quickly to ensure that the interests of the city are made clear to Victoria.

The Liberals are making a habit of late of leaving large messes for local communities to try and solve on their own, the hard hit forestry sector across the province is one instance where the “heartland” seems to have been left to their own devices to sort out the devastation to their economies, now it seems that the education system is set to travel down the same path.

While it’s nice to get those giant cardboard cheques for Olympic Spirit parks and overseas travel junkets as well as any other program able to provide a handy visual backdrop, the real heavy lifting comes in those concerns that most affect the population, dwindling as it is. In this case, what is going on with education in this province and more importantly for locals, how it’s impacting in the way it is in Prince Rupert.

Perhaps some strongly worded statements and frequent phone calls to their partners in Victoria might help get the message across that some accountability is required on behalf of the provincial government to its citizens. An explanation as to why one million dollars has been ripped out of a still struggling community and why no one seems to have the time or apparent interest to come here and explain the details to a population that would like some answers.

The Daily News featured the pending cuts to the School District as their front page story in Monday’s paper; hopefully the Mayor and city council catch up on their reading and get busy trying to get some answers for their citizens.

We have a feeling it might be something of interest to the locals, something that the local government officials might like to find themselves on the right side of the issue with.


TEACHERS BRACE FOR BIG CUTS AS SCHOOLS BUDGET SLASHED
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Pages one and three

Just as things were starting to look brighter for the future of School District 52, it now appears that the district will need to cut more than $1 million in staff and resources for the 2008-09 school year, and even more the following year.

It was discovered at the most recent Advisory Budget Committee that the district will be forced to work with less for the next two years, likely resulting in the layoff of 40 support staff and 18 teachers.

"It's a lot of money to cut, and we're all still trying to fathom how you cut a million dollars from staff, because I think just about everybody would agree we're spread pretty thin already," said Tina Last, chair of School District 52.

"The government continues to say the collective agreement adjustments are fully funded, but what they've also done is taken more from different areas where we used to get more funding. So coincidentally, it's roughly the same amount as the collective agreement adjustments."

At the moment, school board trustees and staff are trying to determine if the situation is unique to Prince Rupert, or whether major budget shortcomings will be affecting school districts across the province. Last has reached out to other board chairs to see if they are finding the same budget shortcomings, and from the handful of responses she has received so far, it appears other districts are finding they also now have insufficient funds.

"Another district bigger than ours is having to cut a million [dollars] from their budget, so there may be a pattern developing where we're all coincidentally finding ourselves short a lot of money," said Last. "We already have many vulnerable kids and we're closing two schools, yet we're going to be cutting the very staff that will help those kids. There are no sacred cows and they are going to be cutting from the top to the bottom, but I don't know how you can cut a million dollars in staff without affecting the very people we're committed to helping, which are the students."

District staff will be putting together recommendations for how the budget cuts could be made, which will begin to unfold at the next two ABC meetings and then be approved by trustees at the final board meeting of the school year next month.

The board has requested North Coast MLA Gary Coons look into the situation and find out if he can help, and the board is also hoping the community of Prince Rupert will work with it to find a solution.

"This is devastating that this Liberal government is not funding their collective agreement commitments and putting it on the back of one of the most vulnerable districts in the province," said Coons.

"We recently saw Prince Rupert as having the second highest rate of child poverty in the province, and EDI scores indicating that more help and support is needed, but this minister continues to deny that help is desperately needed. As soon as I get the necessary information from the school board, I will follow up immediately with the minister, and I hope that all stakeholders and other elected officials take the rally call and act immediately for the sake of our children."

"We're a board of seven and we can make as much noise as we can, but this is a community problem as well," said Last. "If we have to cut, however many employees, those are people potentially with families and kids in school, and if they are without a job are they going to stay in Prince Rupert?

School District 52 has been one of the single biggest employers since the mill closed, so if we cut a million dollars in employees, those are families that will potentially leave our community. The ripple effect is huge."

Large budget cuts on the way for School District 52

"I don't know what options we have other than to scream as loud as we can because I don't know how you can cut $1 million out of staff without having a significant impact on students' education...The domino effect is huge."-- School District chair Tina Last, expressing the boards frustrations at the pending tough decisions to come

Calls for the community to rally around education have been made by the School District 52 school board, that after the Board met to discuss some of the hard decisions that will be on the way with a need to make major cuts to the school district's preliminary budget in June.

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With little in the way of options in providing for the required funding for the District, staffing and other budget cuts are said to be on the horizon for School District 52, as the Prince Rupert school system faces a 2.1 million dollar budget shortfall for 2008-09.

In order to deliver a balanced budget, the school district must find ways to cut down on its costs and in what will prove to be the most controversial of the decisions to come, it's expected that 1 million dollars of that 2.1 million total will come in the way of staffing cuts.

With two schools scheduled to be closed over the summer, the staffing situation around the District will be the most watched of all the budget decisions that the school district will be forced to make before the September school year begins anew.

The board which admits that any ambitious ideas that they may have been planning for the School District will now have to take a back seat, now turns its attention to making a priority of the more routine efforts of just keeping the schools operating as best they can.

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To best deliver the warnings of the serious nature of the pending budget concerns, Board chair Tina Last referred to the current financial situation as the "perfect storm".

It appears to be a storm which has teachers, support staff, administrators and parents looking for answers that don't seem to be easily provided, with concerns about such things as top heavy management, staffing cuts and much needed support for students, clashing with the cold reality that there is only so much money to go around, at least with the current funding formulas in place.

The Northern View had the first view of the budget deliberations with an article posted to their website on Tuesday.

Prince Rupert district must cut $1 million in staff costs
By Shaun Thomas

The Northern View

May 13, 2008

The Prince Rupert School District will have to cut a total of $2.1 million from this year’s budget in order to deliver a balanced budget for the coming school year, including a $1 million cut in staffing costs.

The $1 million surplus from last year is no more and that has combined with the need to fund the pay increases in the collective bargaining agreement that went into place in 2006/2007 to create what board chair Tina Last calls "a perfect storm" for the district.

"The things that have been hitting other districts are hitting us all at once...It's only in the last week that it has become loud and clear how big of an issue this is," she said, noting that she and other trustees were "still in shock.”

"I don't know what options we have other than to scream as loud as we can because I don't know how you can cut $1 million out of staff without having a significant impact on students' education...The domino effect is huge."

While the province included a line item for the labour settlement, secretary/treasurer Kim Morris says that the money for that comes from things like FTE funding and bussing.

"It's like getting a raise, but having the cost of living increase more than the raise so that you end up with less money in your pocket," she explained.

"We really had big plans and ideas of how to move forward and this has really taken the winds out of our sails for things we wanted to do in the district," added trustee Janet Mirau.

And while work on the budget will continue at the next budget committee meeting on May 28, in preparation for tabling a preliminary budget at the June meeting, Last and others are calling on the community to rally around this issue to send a message to Victoria.

"As a district we have a voice, but it is not as loud as a community voice because if the kids aren't getting educated then who suffers? The community does," said Last.

"Cutting $1 million out of the people who educate our kids will have huge ramifications, so we need the community to show their support."