CRISIS is rapidly maturing in British Columbia’s system of educational finance. This crisis has a direct bearing on two things of the utmost concern to all citizens: the standard of schooling available to their sons and. daughters, and the amount they pay as small taxpayers. One of the sharpest expres- sions of this crisis has been the farmers’ tax strike, which, with labor support, was main- ly instrumental in compelling the government to appoint the McLean Commission which is now touring the province in the course of -an inquiry into the incidence of school taxation. What is the background of this crisis? How did it de- velop? What can. be done about it? Educational needs are much more complex in B.C. today than during the last century. School expenses have mounted stead- ily and they can be expected to rise still higher. Yet the pro- vincial government has shoved the main burden of the in- creases On the school districts. For example, in the school year 1899-1900 the government paid 79 percent of school costs and the school districts paid 21 per- cent. In the school year 1945- 46 the government paid 34 per- cent and the school districts paid 66 percent. ; Now the only way the school districts can raise their share is through taxation on land and improvements. And . mill rates have gone more than high enough. You can’t tax where there is no. money and no more funds can be got from the bulk of small municipal tax- Some: protest, “But the money has to come from somewhere.” That’s true, but there are two reasons why the ratio of schoo! costs should be restored to the 1900 division. _ One is that the provincial gov- srmment has broader financial sources, can divert some of its _ federal grant to education and can tax the industrial and finan- _ cial corporations that are evad- tng. their full share of school _ costs. ‘The second is that assessable _ wealth per pupil varies from 15 to 1 in different areas of the province and therefore so long as the districts carry.the main load serious inequalities in edu- cational opportunity. will per- sist. ¢€ s JCATIONAL finance is a ™ quite complex subject and most of us delve no farther than the fundamental facts that we want better schools and we want the provincial govern- ment to carry more of the share of school costs. The fol- lowing facts illustrate in a sim- ple way the specific nature of the problem and what can be done. This is the second educational crisis that has hit B.C. in a decade. In the early nineteen- forties provincial grants to _ School costs were so low that hundreds of teachers were get- ting net salaries of from $13.53 to $15.00 a week. The result was a mass exodus from. the profession. A great province-wide move- ment developed, culminating in the establishment of a commit- tee for revision’ of education finance by. the: B:C. Teachers’ Federation, the B.C. School ‘Trustees’ Association, the Union -of B.C. Municipalities, the B.c. ‘Federation of Agriculture and similar groups. The government, faced with irresistible pressure, appointed Professor Max Cameron to con- - duct an inquiry into the exist- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1947 ing school financial and ad- ministrative set-up and the re- sult was the famous Cameron Report, . It should) be clearly under- stood that the Cameron Report was a progressive report. It contained recommendations, many of which were implement- ed, designed to improve school administration, equalize educa- tional opportunity, and relieve the local taxation burden. It proposed that the government increase its appropriations to $8,680,000, which would be 55 percent of the grand total cost of education on the basis of costs calculated at that time. It is a matter of fact that although provincial appropria- tions have not reached that lev- el, the increased grants that were made have been the only. thing that saved our education- al system from complete col- lapse. Many who would have liked to see the government assume a bigger share, and who recognized that the government would soon have to increase its appropriations again, supported the Cameron Report at that time because of this, and because they also saw the dangers in the reactionary pressure \that was being brought to _ bear against even the Cameron re- commendations. The principal educational ex- pense is teacher’s salaries. Cam- eron constructed a salary scale based on salaries as théy exist- ed in 1943, and said the pro- vincial government should pay that, plus a hitherto non-exist- ent allowance for current ex- penditure (upkeep of classrooms etc.) on a per-pupil basis, less the product of five mills taxa- tion on 100 percent of land and 7 percent of improvements. : @ what has happened: then that is driving our school system once more into erisis? The increases that were made in provincial grants have been more than eaten up by steadily mounting costs, costs that were inevitable and had to be imcreased to keep schools functioning. If, for example, a school dis- trict employing 45 teachers in its public and high schools were to pay those teachers on the basis of the Cameron scale, its salary bill might amount to $70,550° (given typical amounts of experience and training on the part of the staff). But no teachers are being paid on that basis. All but a hand- ful in B.C. are being paid at least on the basis of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation “minimum defensible salary scale.’ The same teachers that would get $70,5050 .under the Cameron since « By soale would get $94,900 under the BCFT scale, an increase. of $24,350 or 34.5 percent. : All this increase is borne by the school district because the government’s contribution re- mains fixed. Similarly, Cameron fixed stan- dards of.$13 per elementary pupil, $17 per junior high schoo] pupil and $20 per senior high school pupil as the basis of tae govern- ment’s contribution towards other school costs such as main- tenance and equipment. (This fig- ure and the salary figure are added together, then ‘the pro- duct of°5 mills taxation is’ sub- tracted and the government pays the rest). These costs are rising too, but again the district pays the increase and the government's contribution remains fixed. . Cameron recognized in his re- port that adjustments would have to be made in the grant basis to meet changing condi- tions, but the only adjustments have been those proposed in the Goldenburg Report whereby the Cameron scale was bogsted in all brackets by $100 per teach- er, the operating expenses grant was boosted $3.00 per pu- pil, and the government pays 60 ‘percent instead of 50 per- cent of pupil transportation costs, a Goldenburg also recommend- ed “that in order to limit the municipal share of the school costs and to maintain the prin- ciple’ of equalization the pro- vincial grants be reviewed from time to time and adjusted to meet changing conditions.” That review is already drasti- cally necessary, and it is to be hoped that some upward. re- visions will be the product of the present hearings, since the Goldenburg increases could only have the effect of a stop-gap of the most temporary nature in stemming a trend towards disintegration of our school sys- tem. EST picture of how urgent the question is becoming™ is seen by examining the sources of the funds that are actually spent in the school districts. In the school year 1945-46 the gov- ernment granted $4,076,211.89 to the districts, and the districts 7 ; a s fs What price colonial labor? B hd ‘relatively high standard of living among British workers maintained in part by the low average standards among workers in raw material producing countries, especially the British colonies. Mass poverty in Ceylon and the West es is, in one aspect, just a function of the cheap tea, and Dp bananas enjoyed by British consumers. ra why *pritish people are on the whole so complacent about their cheap imperialism. sugar, and is one reason “On the other hand, the. huge disorganized army of low-paid colonial labor at the same time acts as a threat to the higher standards in Britain, as for example Lancashire textile workers have good reason to know. “Nor are such effects confined to Britain. Unemployed copper miners in the United States, accustomed to a wage of $4 a day when in work, have ofter. asked with a groan how any copper mine in any civilized country can keep in production, so long as wages in the mines of Northern Rhodesia, and the Belgian Congo average 16 cents a Sarr A Leonard Barrres, in SOVIET LIGHT ON THE COLONIES | BRUCE MICKLEBURGH raised $9,053,420.31 by local tax- ation, giving a total spent in the districts of $13,129,632.20. In other words the government coi- tributed 31 percent of local costs and the districts raised 69 per- cent. Subsequent cost increases are eating up the Goldenburg grant boosts and these increases will continue as prices generally rise and as our educational system is improved to give every young person full opportunity to be educated to the limit of his or her capacity to absorb educa- tion. There is another aspect to the problem of educational fi- nance. Cameron recommended “that an agency for the su- pervision and equalization of assessments both within and without the smmunicipalities be established in the province.” This has not been done, despite enor- mous assessment discrepancies that were not wiped out when the new school] districts were set up, and in spite of enormous exemptions industrial concerns get in effect. It is this situation that touched off much of the re- sentment crystallized in the tax strike movement. ' HE following steps snould be taken by the government at the coming session. @ Salary grants should be paid on the basis of the BCTF scale rather than on the basis of the Cameron scale. @ Per pupil grants on current expenses should be increased to reach 4.5 of estimated expenses for the school year 1947-48. @ The government should pay 4/5 of transportation, school building and other local ex-— penses. : @