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1} - Sunday, March 18, 1990 - North Shore News

NV School Board urged
to avoid austerity budget

“CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE may be
the order of the day,’ if the pro-
vincial government forces the
North Vancouver School District
44 Board to go to a referendum in
order to pass the board's 1990-91
budget, North Vancouver Teach-
ers’ Association president Jack
Stevens told trustees Monday
night.

By PATRICK RAYNARD
Contributing Writer

Stevens was joined by board
members, an education activist and
a representative of the schools’
non-teaching personnel in express-
ing dismay at the proposed legisla-
tion which, if passed, would re-
quire taxpayers’ approval before
school districts could spend
beyond provincial guidelines.

The protests come as the board
agonizes over whether to submit an
austerity budget that would stay
within the provincial limit for the
district, or a ‘‘true needs’’ budget
that would go well beyond the
limit and would call for a school
district-wide referendum.

“Teachers have long held the
view that general revenue ought to
take a greater role in the funding
of public education,’’ Stevens said,
pointing out that the provincial
government does not require refer-
endums for ‘‘such items as the
Lonsdale overpass and other
public expenditures.’’

Stevens told trustees that schools
and students would suffer if the
board accepted an austerity budget
purely out of fear of having to face
a referendum.

“Our needs are outstripping
current financial realities,’’ Stevens
warmed. ‘‘We will be in bad shape
in the spring if the 1990-91 budget
doesn’t meet our needs.’’

Stevens emphasized that teachers
were prepared to throw their full
support behind the board ‘‘with

West Vancouver Schoal Board
budget to rise by 4.88 per cent

WEST VANCOUVER schools got
the good news on Monday: The
1990-91 budget wil! see a 4.88 per
cent increase in per-pupil costs
over this year’s budget, so all ex-
isting programs will continue, un-
touched.

By PATRICK RAYNARD
Contributing Writer

“We believe we will be abie to
finance all our programs next
year,” said finance committee
chairman Michael Smith before the
trustees passed the budget unani-
mously after only four minutes of
amiable discussion.

“This proves the value of sound,
prudent financial management and’
reflects the good shape the West
Vancouver School Board is in,’’
Smith told the News.

This is the eighth year Smith has
chaired the finance committee.

The 1990-91 budget of
$30,544,361 is an increase of

$3,638,141 over the 1989-90 total
of $26,906,220, the board was
told.

The 1990-91 total includes $1.7
million for

teachers’ pensions

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which had been paid by Victoria
until 1989-90,

The amount reflects a 5.8 per
cent increase in student popula-
tion, to 5,405.75 full-time
equivalents, superintendent Doug
Player told the board.

The ‘district per pupil block
amount’ is $5,420.40.

Salaries, wages, pensions and
other benefits of teachers and their
assistants will come to just over
$21 million in i990-91, Smith
reported, adding that the board
has budgeted for a salary increase
that will be in line with inflation
and in line with “settlements in the
ptivate sector.’’

The budget will target the social
Studies program, the implementa-
tion of the primary program and
an increase in supplies, among
other things.

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activities’? if the board chooses to
exceed the provincial limit and go
ahead with a ‘true needs’* budget.

Mike Hocevar, president of the
Canadian Union of Public
Employees local 389, also urged
the board not to ‘‘cave in’’ to ref-
erendum fears, and pledged his
members’ full support if the board
takes a stand against the legisla-
tion.

Stevens told trustees that
schools and students would
suffer if the board accepted
an austerity budget purely
Jor fear of having to face a
referendum.

“We would like to see you, our
elected trustees, more vigorously
and publicly speak out in opposi-
tion to the proposed legislation,’’
he said.

Hocevar told trustees that the
deterioration of many school
buildings, which began during the
1983-84 provincial restraint pro-
gram, has become worse, and
“what now exists is simply a
bare-bones maintenance program
carried out by nothing more than a
skeleton staff.

“To allow even further erosion
of funding as we enter this new
decade ... is disastrous,’’ Hocevar
said,

Education activist Betty Griffin,
in a forceful speech to the board,
called on parent councils to get the

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message out to the public and ‘‘br-
ing pressure to bear on our
MLAs” to assure that the referen-
dum legislation is not even in-
troduced.

Griffin also implored trustees to
“budget to the real needs of our
children,’’ rather than submit to
fear of the government’s ‘‘outra-
geous”’ referendum scheme.

Trustees Don Bell, Marg Jessup,
Squamish Band Chief Philip Joe,
Dorothy Lynas, and Anne Mac-
donald condemned the referendum
scheme. Richard Walton alone
urged the gathering to remember
“the delicate balance between the
needs of the kids and the needs of
the community.”’

“We have to have sensitivity
with the public’s willingness and
ability to pay, or we could find
ourselves providing a quality
education with an eroding base of
support,’” Walton warned.

But he later supported his col-
leagues in motions that urged the
government to scrap the referen-
dum idea and increase per-student
funding.

Schools superintendent Dr.
Robin Brayne told the board that
the 1990-91 ‘‘draft operating
budget,’’ kept within the ‘‘expen-
diture ceiling’? imposed by the
province, would mean ‘‘no im-
provements’’ in teaching and
learning environments, the physi-
cal plant, professional and cur-
riculum development, materials
and supplies, and new and
replacement equipment including
computers.

Board chairman Rev. Roy
Dungey told che News the board
would make its final decision on
the budget at its regular meeting
on March 27,

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