School district still $2 million short on budget

Changing the face of the Kamloops-Thompson School District for a savings of some $3 million isn’t enough to prevent a substantial deficit heading into budget discussions for the coming school year.

School district secretary treasurer Kelvin Stretch said Wednesday the culprit is provincial operating funding that pays teacher wage increases and funds all-day kindergarten, but not inflationary cost pressures.

He said the school district faces a budget challenge of $5.4 million. By the time savings are tallied from the facilities reconfiguration, that amount is reduced to $2.4 million.

To avoid a deficit, the $119 million in operating funding from the provincial government would need to include monies for teacher pension increases ($900,000), increases for the medical service plan ($120,000) or employee benefits ($40,000). It does not, Stretch confirmed.

“We’re still dealing with $2.4 million that we need to find,” he said. That can come from additional revenues, which are hard to find, or lay off staff. About 88 per cent of the school district budget goes to staff wages.

“The bulk of the savings will come from reducing staff.”

How many jobs will be lost won’t be know until the school district presents a preliminary budget in a couple of weeks, said Stretch.

The local teachers’ union is anticipating a number of jobs will be lost. Kamloops-Thompson Teachers’ Association president David Komljenovic said 30 to 50 positions could be cut.

Komljenovic hopes enough teachers will retire that no one will be without work in September. But attrition isn’t the solution, he said.

“You can’t create a world-class education system by cutting services,” he said. The province has to provide more money for schools.

Stretch said the province is also holding back a large sum of money in anticipation of enrolment growth come September. The amount is usually about $25 million provincially. Now it’s $63 million.

“Why so much money?” he asked, adding additional funding would come in handy now.

What frustrates school trustees is the province maintains funding for public education is higher now than it has ever been, with an additional $112 million given to school districts this year.

The problem is $58 million of that is designated to full-day kindergarten — which begins in the fall. The remaining $54 million is for teacher salary increases, said vice chairwoman Diane Dosch.

“Yes, they put more money in. But they told us where it has to go,” she said.

By claiming education funding is on the rise while downloading costs on school districts, the province is playing a dirty game with the public, said Dosch.

NDP education critic Robin Austin agrees. He said the province is short-changing students by not funding education properly.

“They’re chipping away at the basis for a good system,” said Austin.

The school district reduced grades and services from rural schools, created a middle school at Brocklehurst secondary and made North Shore elementary schools K to Grade 6 to save $3 million.

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