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Fetraary £0, 1989 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 Distribution 986-1337 72 pages 25¢

1 - Friday, February 10, 1989 - North Shore News

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PAGE 23

- WEST VAN PAYS ONE OF THE LARGEST SHARES IN B.C.

s North Shore faces

school tax inequity

RESIDENTS from the North Shore and other areas of the
Greater Vancouver Regional Disirict are paying a
disproportionately large share of schooi costs compared
with the rest of the province, according to a recently releas-
ed GVRD finance department study.

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And under the current provincial
funding formula, West Vancouver
taxpayers will pay one of the
highest proportionate “hares in the
province.

The study estimates that,
overall, GVRD. residents are pay-
ing $130 mitlion more than they
would be if they were paying the
same share of ni school costs res-
idents pay elsewhere in the pro-
vince.

According to the GVRD study,
the resident:al share of school
budgets after 1989 assessments in
West Vancouver's District 45 will
be 51.2 ver cent, while in other
GVRD school districts, such as
North Vancouver's District 44, the
average residential share will be
36.7 per cert compared with 23.9
per cent elsewhere in B.C.

“We are very concerned about
it,” West Vancouver Mayor Don
Lanskail said Tuesday.

The provincial government pays
55 per cent of school costs in all 75
B.C. school districts. But propor-
tionate provincial shares of the
remaining 45 per cent are based on
a property assessments-per pupil
formula.

Because of high property
assessments in West Vancouver
School District 45, the district,
along with Vancouver school
districts, does not qualify for any
additional funding grants beyond
the basic 55 per cent.

Lanskail said West Vancouver,
in addition to supporting the
GVRD’s new Metro Vancouver
Task Force on Schoo! Taxation,
which was formed to fight for
equitable schoo! funding, will ar-
range to meet with the province to
present West Vancouver’s par-
ticular problems.

Rob Gage, ihe ministry of
education’s acting director of
school finance, said Thursday one
of the recommendations of the
Sullivan commission on education
was a review of the ministry’s fund-
ing formula. The ministry will be
considering recommendations and
alternatives to the formula after
meeting with the GVRD and other
delegations.

Though the provincial govern-
ment recently announced a $129-
million increase in 1989-90 grants
to school districts, GYRD secre-

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
ws Reporter

tary-treasurer Jim McLean said the
GVRD’s concern is not with the
total amount of education fund-
ing, but the equity of how it is
distributed.

On average, 1988 assessments in
West Vancouver went up 39 per
cent. In North Vancouver District
they went up 24 per cent, and in

WEST Vancouver Mayor Doa
Lanskail ...“‘We are very concern-
ed about it.’*

North Vancouver City 18 per cent
overall,

Total assessments in Greater
Vancouver increased 25.7 per cent
compared to 10.2 per cent in the
rest of the province.

According to the GVRD study,
local residential taxpayers in
school districts outside the GVRD
pay 24.3 per cent of schooi re-
quirements, while in school
districts within the GVRD, local
taxpayers pay 40.3 per cent.

School taxes for a typical home-
owner in Greater Vancouver could
rise as much as 18 per cent if
school costs rise six per cent, and
27 per cent if school costs rise 10
per cent, the study estimates.

The inequity, it concludes, is
worsening because of the fun-
damentally flawed assumptions
that higher property assessments in
the GVRD mean the area has a
greater ability to pay and that
GVRD residents are wealthier than

See Average
Page 3

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