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BC's Education Budget Faces 'Structural Shortfall'

School trustees, administrators sound alarms.

By Crawford Kilian, 11 May 2009, TheTyee.ca

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Enrolment is dropping, but not fixed costs.

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Both the New Democrats and the BC Liberals have pledged to maintain funding levels for elementary and secondary education in the province, but the people who have the job of meeting school budgets say they'll need more in order to deal with changing realities.

The Tyee recently talked with representatives of school trustees and administrators and heard deep concerns. They are working hard, they say, to deal with a demographic one-two punch: a dwindling school-age population, and an aging population of administrators.

The result, if no more funds are forthcoming from the provincial government, is a widening "structural shortfall" built into the future of education, say those who look most closely at the numbers.

Caught in the middle: trustees and administrators

They don't get the attention that teachers do, but school trustees and administrators play a major role in B.C. education.

Trustees, in theory, run the show. But Victoria sets their school budgets. Trustees have to operate on the money given them, and they have to cut programs or close schools when the money runs out.

Superintendents are the CEOs of B.C. school districts, advising their boards and doing what the boards tell them. When they have to implement cuts, that makes them villains to district staff.

The principals and vice-principals, meanwhile, have the thankless task of telling their teachers, students and parents just what's being cut.

Members of all three groups don't have reason to expect they will become much popular with staff and students' families in the near future.

A dramatic fall in enrolments

Part of the reason is that the drop in enrolments over the past decade has been dramatic. Between 1998 and 2008, public and private schools have seen almost a seven per cent fall in student numbers. In the public system alone, the fall is almost nine per cent. This has serious funding implications.

Keven Elder, president of the B.C. School Superintendents' Association, says he appreciates that provincial funding hasn't fallen despite the drop in enrolments. But rising fixed costs are creating a "structural shortfall."

He cites a study by the Secretary-Treasurers Association that indicates the scale of the problem: To go on delivering current levels of service, B.C. schools need $132 million more. "Depending on the district, we're one to five per cent shy of maintaining the status quo," Elder says.

A rise in expectations

But the status quo isn't good enough because the schools' mandate keeps growing, and expectations are high.

Elder sees a need to improve the "dysfunctional" relationship between the B.C. Teachers' Federation and the provincial government." It's focused on issues of disagreement, he says, and he'd like to see candidates in the election explain how they'd help to restore the relationship.

For Connie Denesiuk, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, "better funding" is also critical. She says the funding is up slightly, but "increasing costs put boards in the difficult position of making cuts to balance the budget."

Staffing absorbs about 85 per cent of school budgets, she says. "When contractual settlements carry us over the funding level, it means program cuts."

Other costs are hurting some school districts. "Transportation is a significant cost, and funding for it hasn't increased for years. A review of that funding is taking place, but it's overdue." Denesiuk says some districts are already charging families for bus service, and others are considering that step.

"It's all to keep support in the classroom," she says.

Preparing for special-needs students

Denesiuk says other issues for trustees include money to train new teachers to ensure student success. "We want teacher training to prepare teachers for special-needs students. Integration of such students is working well, but we want to do a better job for every student."

The Liberals have also promised "early learning" programs for four-year-olds, and full-day kindergarten. Denesiuk supports those programs, but not all schools will have the physical space to implement them -- or the money to convert regular classrooms to meet program requirements.

Do the trustees foresee new funding problems over the summer, as the new government creates a real budget? Denesiuk says both Liberals and New Democrats have promised trustees that they'll face no additional budget reductions after the election.

Trustees, elected officials, rely on their superintendents for advice. But many supers are retiring, and they're hard to replace.

Keven Elder says the retirement rate is currently about 10 per cent: "There are about 250 of us, and about 25 have retired in each of the last couple of years."

But the recruitment and retention issue is important at all levels of the system, he says. "We need to ensure a climate where leadership is attracted."

At the local school level, the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association is really worried about funding and demographics. Marilyn Merler, president of the BCPVPA, says Victoria is asking for a three per cent cut in administration budgets to help support classroom activities.

Attracting new principals

The principals worry about recruitment. "It's frightening to see how many are retiring or just leaving the profession," she says. It's becoming harder to attract teachers into administration. Many teachers don't think the extra income is worth the hassle that comes with the job.

And in many districts, senior teachers and vice-principals are paid about the same; in some districts, VPs make less than senior teachers.

"Remote northern districts are really tough to staff," says Merler. She says the turnover of principals and vice-principals is "huge." In one district, a teacher with just three years' experience became a principal.

Principals were once part of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, but the old Socred government pulled them out of the BCTF in 1988. Now, says Merler, they're caught between teachers on one side and parents and government on the other over issues like the Fundamental Skills Assessment test. When teachers refused to deal with the FSA, principals and vice-principals had to administer and score the test.

Elder agrees that everyone in the schools needs to be "on the same page" about assessment, and says the FSA is a challenge. "But assessment done well supports learning," he says.

A conversation about the schools

Whoever wins the election, the schools will still have to deal with funding and demographics. Keven Elder says educators will have to deal with the gap between mandate and funding, and work on system improvements.

"We need a conversation across the province about improving education," he says. He wants to see an improved school-completion rate, and better programs for First Nations and special-needs students. It may be time, he speculates, for a new education commission; it's been 20 years since the Sullivan Commission gave the schools their last detailed scrutiny.

Trustees and administrators are proud of the schools, and all want to see greater student success. As Keven Elder puts it: "How do we create an even better system?"

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

17 Comments:

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  • RickW

    2 years ago

    Campbell has already alluded to.........

    ........the "necessity" of cutting budgets due to the "downturn". So, if he is re-elected, we can expect cuts in the usual places -- education, health, social services.

    If he does not get in, he leaves the new government with a conundrum -- where to get the money to continue funding, if not increase it to "civilized" levels. A new government could easily cancel many infrastructure projects, as well as cutting subsidies to O&G, etc. but it will serve as grist for the new opposition's propaganda mill concerning the "lack of business experience" of the new government.

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    rock and hard place

    Excellent article, Crawford Killian!

    It is nice to remind us that much of the divisiveness found in schools resulted the the principals being placed at odds with the teachers by the Socreds. It has forced a structure which is much more Top-Down in approach. Administrators are people who gravitate toward having to control things. They are generally concrete-sequential thinkers who often have little patience or respect for some brilliant abstract-random thinking teachers who might take intuitive leaps of logic without wishing to cross all the "t"s or dot the "i"s while they are forced to complete some meaningless minutia.

    It must be remembered as well, it was the Socreds who commissioned the overhaul of education with the Sullivan Report. The NDP came into power, and they were left with having to fund its implementation. They had to fund that implementation on top of having to maintain the system that was. After all, students aren't widgets that can sit idle on an assbly line while the factory is retooled and the staf are retrained. This was a huge expense that the NDP had to carry or turn students back to the 19th-century factory model. Most of the Liberals remember school as the 19th century model and they try to fund it as such.

    A further trouble is that the percentage of children with special needs is on the rise. The declining over-all numbers of students is being compounded with more special needs children per class. There are more children with difficulties (such as autism) for a whole host of known and unknown reasons: Toxins in the environment (pesticides and plastics etc.); older women giving birth to babies (increases likelihood of downs-syndrome and birth defects); crack, meth, fetal alcohol and other brain-injured babies; 22% of BC children living in poverty and all the malnutrition etc. that comes along with it. Some smaller districts are especially hard hit by these problems because there are not enough qualified resource peole to go around.

    RickW, excellent summary of the conundrum faced.

  • Van Isle

    2 years ago

    If Campbell is re-elected

    If Campbell is re-elected expect a whole bunch of crap to hit the fan in the next year. Expect mass-demonstrations and the whole of BC will be up in arms over the Liberals mismanagement of the province. I still think we'll have protests/demonstrations next February during the Olympics, and that's just the start. Campbell will resign in about a year from now to "spend more time with the family". (Hmmm, which family?)

  • dave49

    2 years ago

    Carbon offsets

    Also, be aware that achieving 'carbon neutrality' by 2010 will mean purchasing official offsets at $25 per tonne CO2.

    Where will this money be cut from operational budgets?

  • Name

    2 years ago

    Well done!

    Excellent, credible analysis of a central issue in public education that should have been front and centre in this election. (Why hasn't this ever been discussed in any of the mainstream news media?)

    It only saddens me that this won't be read by every parent of BC's 500,000 K-12 students who is entitled to go to the polls and do something about it tomorrow!

  • reallife

    2 years ago

    Teachers and the environment

    Many teachers are strong supporters of the environmental movement and criticize governments for not doing enough to encourage healthier living. Perhaps the teachers could help fight climate change by giving up their free parking and taking public transit to work. The teachers who do not care about protecting the environment could help fund education by paying market rates for their parking priviledges.

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    please get real, reallife

    Firstly, you ignor the subject: the Liberal's chronic and future underfunding of schools. Secondly, you paint 40,000+ teachers with one brush. Perhaps many are doing as you swish; perhaps many aren't. Thirdly, I know several teachers, and they have described their work to me. They often take large bags and boxes of marking etc. home with them. I catch them making 2 trips from their cars as they come home from work. This is especially true if they must pick up a child from day-care or grab something for dinner. There are trips to resource centres for films, etc.. Further, many teachers are often found doing school-related things (like visit parents and community members, or coach teams or performers) after school hours. Most teachers work 10-14 hours per day, and on many days, they are never quite sure when they will make it home. Until we reduce their ever-increasing work-loads, we cannot expect them to do one thing more. Finally, school grounds are not safe places after school hours. It is an unpatrolled public space. Criminals often hang out in these spaces because there are no home-owners, nor dogs keeping them away. I have heard about women teachers in some violent neighbourhoods who are afraid to go just to the parking lot after dark, let alone walk several blocks with marking in their hands to a bus. One male teacher had actually been attacked and two female had been threatened when they came upon gang activity that was taking place on school grounds. I've walked my dog near the local public school (even in my small friendly neighbourhood) only to have passed by drinking and crack-pipe smoking people on those school grounds as darkness sets in. Teachers didn't go to university for 5-8 years to become cops or soldiers. They didn't take their positions to have to walk the gauntlet to a bus stop and then wait in the darkness for a ride home.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    Sharing.........

    Quote:
    It is nice to remind us that much of the divisiveness found in schools resulted the the principals being placed at odds with the teachers by the Socreds.

    Quote:
    It must be remembered as well, it was the Socreds who commissioned the overhaul of education with the Sullivan Report.

    And it has been said that the present-day (soon to be "ex"?) Liberals are recycled Socreds.........

  • DNA

    2 years ago

    I'm confused

    I am confused:
    1) About 85% of costs is staffing
    2) Staffing should be proportional to enrollment, I should think.
    3) Enrollment is dropping, over 100 schools have been closed.
    3) The Liberal government says it is constantly increasing educational funding.
    4) Teachers and principals are retiring, which means expensive senior staff is being replaced with cheaper junior staff.
    So... why in the world are trustees saying they can't keep up with costs.
    (I understand why the teachers union says that the educational system is underfunded - they always say that. That's their role, to try to get more money for teachers. As Samuel Gompers once put it, the goal of a trade union is alway 'More!')
    But seriously, what is happening?
    Are class sizes being reduced, so that we have the same number of teachers teaching fewer kids? That may not be a bad thing, but I haven't heard this is happening.
    Is the government lying, and funding isn't being increased in proportion to, say, the negotiated wage increases? (They got 16% over 5 years, 2005 through 2011, that's about 3% a year.)
    Is more money being spent on non-staffing costs?
    All this is very confusing... could you get to the bottom of this, Crawford, because the facts as you've given us them (dwinding enrollments, staff costs proportional to enrollment, increasing costs, budget shortfalls) don't make sense.
    Neale Adams

  • reallife

    2 years ago

    Sharing

    Most of the teachers I know put in a decent day's work but I have a hard time believing that "Most teachers work 10-14 hours per day". Not even the the BCTF would expect me to swallow that. Nor are the areas near schools any more dangerous than other parts of communities. Even if your statements were true, there is no reason that teachers cannot afford to pay for parking like the rest of us.

    Like other taxpayers, the constant demand for more government spending has me reaching near the bottom of my pocket.

  • Crawford

    2 years ago

    A couple of answers

    Neale asks some good questions. Here's a stab at some answers:

    Staffing isn't always proportional to enrolment. Special-needs students and some subjects require a low teacher-pupil ratio or they just don't run. Others, such as choir, can do fine with a high pupil-teacher ratio.

    "Increased funding" doesn't equal "adequate funding." If I want to buy an item that costs a thousand dollars, and I pay $800 for it (more than I've ever paid before!), I still haven't covered the cost of the item.

    Teachers and principals are retiring, but if you can't recruit enough replacements, it doesn't matter how cheap the replacements might be. As the article points out, in many cases the teachers already make as much as vice-principals. In even more cases, teachers don't think the extra money is worth the trouble that goes with the job.

    As for trustees, they're looking at "invisible" costs like insurance, fuel (for heating as well as buses), and provincially imposed salary contracts.

    When I was a trustee almost 30 years ago, boards could set local residential and industrial tax rates to bring in more revenue than the province would give us. Now Victoria tells boards how much they're getting, and it's up to trustees to decide how to spend it. (This is actually more egalitarian than it was in my day, but when there's not enough money it only means spreading the misery equally.)

    Class sizes seem to be inching up here and there, often with a reasonable number of kids but too many special-needs kids with too few teachers' aides to help look after them. The net effect is overcrowded classes and overworked teachers.

    Hope this helps. Wish I could be more encouraging.

  • teesola

    2 years ago

    Response to Reallife

    I am a teacher, and I put in ten hours a day on average. I also put in several hours of marking on weekends, and spend at least a week of my (unpaid) summer vacation cleaning/setting up my classroom, as well as many extra hours reading professional books to try to improve my teaching practice and keep it fun and interesting for my students. During report card writing weeks, I put in at least fourteen hours per day. (In my district, it takes about two hours per student to write a report card. That means sixty extra hours of work for me, and we are not given any release time to do this). Not all my colleagues work as hard as I do, but in my experience most of them do, and the ones who don't have families at home work even harder.
    Anyway, this is not woe is me. I love my students and enjoy my work and feel confident that I am doing an important job. But it is exceedingly disheartening when members of the public such as you pick on things like paying for parking. I would LOVE to take transit to work - what could be better than sitting, relaxing and reading or maybe getting some marking done on my commute rather than stressing out in traffic? But to get to my school on transit takes about two hours (I've tried it). I also carpool when possible, but that's problematic since we all leave at different times. I would be happy to pay for parking if:
    1.) I could write off a portion of my insurance and my gas for the numerous times I drive the students in my class on field trips and for driving school teams (which I coach for free)to their various sporting events. Every single penny of that comes out of my own pocket, with no way to get it back from my school district nor at tax time. I'm not complaining, but I certainly would if my generosity in this department was answered with a parking fee!
    2.) I could write off the money I spend on books and materials for my class. During my fifteen years as a teacher, I have spent thousands of my own dollars on teaching resources (especially when I was just starting out)and on books, stickers, pencils, and presentations to enrich the lives of my students. For whatever reason, teachers can't write off materials they need for their job like people in other sectors can.

  • teesola

    2 years ago

    P.S. to Reallife

    Teaching is an incredibly demanding job. There is not the set program and workbooks to go with it that there was when I was a child. Teachers are given giant binders of prescribed learning outcomes for each subject, and it is pretty much up to the teacher to figure out how to meet those outcomes. The recommended resources are frequently unavailable/too expensive to purchase, and there is a lack of adequate textbooks, so teachers have to be extra creative and spend a lot of time researching and rexvising ways of meeting the outcomes. On top of that, it is not easy to manage a class of thirty energetic students who have incredibly different needs, language abilities and levels of academic achievement, and parents who often feel that it is not up to them to teach manners and ethics. Please don't make our job even more discouraging than it is by whining about a foolish thing like paying for parking!

  • indieteacher

    2 years ago

    Working

    Au contraire reallife, every elementary and secondary school classroom teacher I know puts in at least an average of 10 hours a day.

  • indieteacher

    2 years ago

    Working

    Au contraire reallife, every elementary and secondary school classroom teacher I know puts in at least an average of 10 hours a day.

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    DNA & reallife

    DNA:
    We must not forget that the Campbell government has not been funding the education services they expect. The teachers have not been retiring in numbers that out-pace the cuts to staffing and funding. Even if teachers retired at a higer rate, I believe the schools get remuneration for staffing as per the education and experience of the teachers on staff. Campbell has not been funding districts at a level whereby schools can do all that is asked/required of them.

    Reallife
    I can agree to disagree on the hours that teachers work; though we must not forget that most teachers' work days are not done when they leave the building.

    Re parking: Most of the teachers volunteer time coaching etc.. Most of the organizations I know of that rely on volunteers, do not expect their volunteers to pay for parking. Those organizations often provide parking validation or bus passes (out of their various funding sources) for their volunteers. Further, parking lots are needed for parents to pick up children - after school and for extra-curricular events. Many of the schools get used for community events by volunteer and community sports organizations. Therefore, the parking gets used by more than just teachers.

    Teachers are professionals. Doctors and nurses do not pay for their parking. College and university instructors do not pay for their parking. Grocery store and mall employees do not pay for their parking. Factory and mill workers do not pay for their parking. I think it is primarily big city hotel and restaurant, retail stores and lower level white collar workers that have to pay for parking.

    Though they have between 5 and 8 years of post secondary education, big city teachers don't earn enough money to afford a 3 bedroom family home in the areas where they work. They must commute; and often, they need a car to do their work. Everywhere, but in the heart of large cities, parking is not an issue: everyone (not just teachers) in the burbs and beyond has a place to park for work. A parking place provided for highly educated teachers is a standard across North America. It should be a non-issue.

  • Crawford

    2 years ago

    As a matter of fact...

    Instructors certainly do pay for their parking, at least at Cap: $3 a day or $180 a year, just like students. The cost of creating and maintaining a parking lot is not something that colleges and universities are going to swallow just to make faculty happy. Even the administrators pay for parking.

    It's one of the joys of retirement that I don't have to pay it any more!

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