6 — Friday, March 6, 1992 - North Shore News

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INSIGHTS

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NEWS ——

Education cuts

awakening when they find out how
far beyond the means of our educa-
tion system we have been living.

| OCAL PARENTS are in for a rude

Cuts to local education sre coming and
they will be deeper than what most people
might heve expected. Both North Van-
couver istrict 44 and West Vancouver
District 45 face critical shortfalls and will
have to make some tough budget deci-
stons. The shortfalls result from a com-
bination of provincial underfunding and
salary overfunding.

Working with a 2.6% biock funding in-
crease from the provincial government,
District 44 is faced with a $5.5 million
shortfall that could be double that total by
September. District 45 has been allotted a

1.3% per student block-funding increase.
District 45 is still determining the extent of
its shortfall, but its administration has al-
ready indicated that between 16 and 20
positions within the district will have to be
cut.

The District 44 board, meanwhile, has
directed that its budget cuts be carried out
without personnel layoffs, salary or benefit
reductions. But, unless the board intends
to gut its schoo! programs, that directive is
more wishful thinking than realistic.

With personnel-related expenses accoun-
ting for close to 86% of the total budgets
in both districts, layoffs are inevitable.

But rest assured that when the smoke
clears the real victims will be the school
system itself and the children who depend
on it for their basic education.

LETTER OF THE DAY

NVD playing fields need attention

Dear Editor:

The playing fields attached to
the schools in North .Vancouver
are deteriorating rapidly. This will
be the last year that they can be
used safely unless maintenance is
stepped up immediately.

The problem is that School
District #44 has stated that, with a
potential shortfall of $4.5 million,
it will be difficult it not impossible
to maintain the fields adequately
or even altogether,

Publisher
Managing Editor . .
Associate Editor
Advertising Director .
Comptroller

Peter Speck

. Timothy Renshaw
Noel Wright

. Linda Stewart
Doug Foot

I consider that nothing short of
disaster.

Soccer and baseball are the two
sports which the average family
can still afford. We will have
thousands of unhappy kids if the
school fields are no longer avail-
able for either practices or games.

I believe it is absolutely essential
to call a conference immediately
between the two councils, North
Vancouver City and District, the
North Vancouver MLAs, School

Display Advertising 980-0511
Real Estate Advertising 985-6982

Newsroom 985-2131

Distribution
Subscriptions
Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax

Admunistration

District 44, the Field Users
Association and other community
groups so that we can address this
problem.

We, as a community, wil! have
to make some immediate decisions
as to where the money is to come
from and what our priorities are.

Time is running out.

Ernie Crist
Alderman
North Vancouver District

986-1337
986-1337
985-3227 Pea
985-2131 |

Spare council
om writing
its own ticket

1 HATE to rain on anyone’s
parade but the 5.4% salary in-
crease North Van District council
gave itself last week raises a more
fundamental question about the
pay of elected civic officials
EVERYWHERE.

No great quarrel with the hike
itself — which follows a formula
produced by a citizens’ task force
and may te perfectly reasonable.
The real mystery is how the
BASIC stipends — both in
District and in Greater Van-
couver’s other 1! municipalities —
were originally set.

The striking differences between
them suggests that either (a) citi-
zens of the four biggest
municipalities are miserable
tightwads, or (b) those of the
eight smaller ones grossly overpay
their city fathers and mothers.

This hits you as soon as you
relate pay to population — i.c.,
how much each resident forks out
annually for his elected servants.

In Vancouver City, Burnaby,
Richmond and Surrey— with pop-
ulations ranging from 120,000 to
472,000 — it averages 27 cents per
capita for the mayor and 10 cents
per alderman. Vancouverites, who
make up one-third of the total
area population, get away with a
miserly 15 cents a head for their
mayor and 7 cents for each
alderman.

Corresponding figures for the
eight municipalities in the
18,000-87,000 population bracket
average three to four times higher
— mayors at 96 cents, aldermen
at 30 cents, North Van District,
with a 73,500 populaticn, comes
in at 81 cents (mayor) and 27
cents (aldermen).

And the smaller the municipali-
ty, the more lavish. For mayor
and aldermen respectively West
Van (pop. 39,535) $1.16 and 39
cents.

Leading the parade is tiny Port
Moody (pop. 18,000) whose
mayor costs $2.75 per citizen —
providing a salary higher than that
of the mayor of Delta (pop.
87,239). Port Moody aldermen
cost 72 cents.

Even allowing for economies of
scale and, in some cases, larger
councils, population is the
ultimate measure of civic prob-
Jems and responsibilities. Van- -
couver City inevitably has to cope
with well over six times as many
of them as North Van District —
just as Delta has to cope with
almost five times as many as Port
Moody. But in these and other
Greater Vancouver examples the

HITHER AND YON

relationship to mayoral and
aldermanic pay scales simply
doesn’t add up.

Maybe it’s time for Victoriato. >: aaa

step in and level the playing field.
A province-wide pay formula
making some kind of mathemati-
cal sense for ALL municipal!
councils would be fairer to
everyone.

Not least to the councils — -
spared the embarrassement of
writing their own tickets every
year or two with the voters sourly
watching!

SIGN-OFF: Upbeat Socreds and
their like are invited to an 8 a.m
brunch Saturday, March 7, in
Cheers Restaurant, 125 East 2nd,
with the entire Socred caucus -—
Jack Weisgerber, Chris Serwa, - -
Harry De Jong, Len Fox, Rickard
Neufeld and Lyle Hansen —
PLUS former Capilano MLA.
Angus Ree. Later they’ll meet

with the party board and get mov-
ing on the choice of an interim
leader. Truly a unique event with
avery modest $8 tab! . . ;
Tomorrow also, at 8 p.m., Spring ::’*
Valley Eurythmic Troupe will —~
present an ‘Evening with “
Everything’? in West Van Second-
ary School — some tickets may
still be available at the door...
And yet again tomorrow, March
7, wish happy birthday to West
Van’s Tom Wardell.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Finagle’s ©
Law: Once a job is screwed up, —
anything done to improve it
makes ity worse.
Ts

ANE VONCE OF NOITTH AME WEST VANCOUVER:

‘north shore

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NEWS photo Mike Wakefield
PROTECTIVE CUSTODY... RCMP Cst. W.L. Pride and “Big Duck”
guard some of the 30,000 Alberta quackers — here for the March
15 Great Capilano River Duck Race — arriving by Loomis Courier
at North Shore Studios.

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