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More funds needed for education: SD5
School District No. 5 (SD5) is urging B.C.’s Minister of Finance to hear the B.C. School Trustees’ Association (BCSTA) position that more funding is required for education in the province.
In a March 13 letter to Minister of Finance Michael de Jong, the SD5 board states support for a BCSTA letter from November 25, 2016 and asks de Jong to consider “stable, predictable and adequate funding” for provincial education needs.
“Specifically our board supports – and echoes— the BCSTA’s concerns over “how supplementary funding announcements can be transformed into predictable, ongoing budget allocations,” their “specific expectations for the continuation of funding to school districts” of the past year’s $48 million in supplementary funding announcements and their seven recommendations, as previously provided to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services (SSCFGS),” begins the board letter, signed by board chair Frank Lento.
“We would like to remind government that the NEED for increased spending to education is an ongoing theme of the SSCGFS recommendations each year. Most recently, in their 2016 report the committee clearly indicated that education constituted a significant portion of the public’s budget input and that no other area of expense exceeded K-12 education as a public spending priority,” Lento said.
“Despite these bipartisan findings, K-12 education continues to be significantly underfunded and the SSCFGS recommendations unheeded while boards scramble to fund yearly inflationary costs like Hydro and MSP, the new MyEdBC program, the training and resources required to implement the renewed curriculum, PVP/exempt staff compensation etc., over and above basic funding categories.”
Lento said while his board acknowledges that government has provided “limited funding envelopes to address some capital concerns such as transportation and minor building upgrades, this funding does not address the boards ongoing need for major capital for the replacement of SD5’s largest high school, Mount Baker Secondary or for stable, predictable and adequate funding.
“Once again, our board urges your government to listen to the taxpayers of British Columbia – as per the findings of multiple SSCFGS reports— and make a real and significant investment in public education.”
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