This Week

FACE TO FACE 2

Education Minister Tony Brummet recently introduced a new
approach to education funding. Among the most controversial
changes he has made is the introduction of referendums which
will be used by school districts which desire funding over and

Page M4_February 21, 1990.

above that normally supplied by the province. The education

minister says it’s a way to stave off a taxpayer’s revolt but a
Charles Hingston, president of the B.C. Trustees Association,

Says it’s a black day for B.C. education.

‘Education funding, stability increased’ Referendums ‘black day for education’

By TONY BRUMMET creased its grants to local school By CHARLES HINGSTON e ranked last in provincial and munici-
t the end of January, I an- districts in an attempt to provide relief he B.C. government’s an- pal expenditures on education as a
nounced a new “block funding” to local taxpayers. In 1989-90 these nouncement that school dis- percentage of total provincial and mu-

approach to financing public
education in British Colum-
bia. This new approach will increase
overall funding for education in 1990,
while providing taxpayers with greater
control over local spending increases.
These changes were made to protect the
quality of education in our schools.
_ Overall funding for public education
in BC will increase by 6.17 per cent this
year. This increase exceeds the rate of
inflation. The new block funding ar-
rangement will cover costs for all the
programs now in place in our schools —
and the six per cent increase is more
than enough to cover rising prices.
The block funding approach provides
for: classroom instruc-
tion; special education;
transportation (bus-
ing); personal care for
children with special
needs; new schools and
expansions; repairs, re-
novations and mainte-
nance; funds for teach-
ing English as a Second
Language; teachers’
pensions; and much
more
Last year the cost of
public education in
British Columbia was
$2.42 billion dollars.
This will increase to an
estimated $2.62 billion
for the 1990/91 school
year. This allocation will be distributed
to school boards under an existing fra-
mework which allows for special local
circumstances. This framework was de-
veloped jointly with the province's 75
school boards, and is revised annually.

_ Under the new block funding arrange-
ment, school boards may increase their
spending beyond the block available to
them after holding a local referendum
on the additional spending.

This new requirement for referendum
provides taxpayers with greater control
of local school board budgets. We have
seen an extraordinary rise in local
school taxes in BC over the past five
years. The supplementary budgets of
local school districts — which are fund-
ed entirely by local taxpayers — grew
dramatically from $66 million in 1986-
87 to $238 million last year — an
increase of 261 per cent. This supple-
Mentary spending more than doubled in
one year between 1988-89 and 1989-90.

Each year the government has in-

TONY BRUMMET

grants to school districts were $401
million greater than they were in 1986-
87. In spite of this increase, there is no
sign that spending by school boards is
levelling off, and local taxpayers contin-
ue to be hit with hefty increases year
after year.

We have now reached a point where
we face a taxpayer backlash over in-
creased school taxes. I have seen evi-
dence of this in every region of the
province. MLAs from all over BC hear
from taxpayers who simply can’t afford
more tax increases. This same message
was delivered to government over and
over again at the local Property Tax
Forum meetings held last year. We
cannot allow this to
happen.

The block funding
approach protects the
existing quality in our
education system in-
cluding all current ex-
penditures in its base,
and then adding to that
base. Not only have we
added significantly to
| that base, we have al-
lowed for additional lo-
cal spending through
referenda.

Cnitics of our referen-
dum plan point to
American states where
local boards need to
raise school levies by
referenda. These American examples
have little in common with our ap-
proach.

American boards must seek taxpayer
approval for basic expenditures — in
some cases for 100 per cent of basics. In
British Columbia block funding already
provides for all the basics. It covers the
costs already included in district budg-
ets, along with a generous economic
adjustment. Costs for construction,
computers and for development of new
programs are not limited by block fund-
ing and do not need to be put to
referendum — they are funded separ-
ately by the Ministry of Education.

School boards in British Columbia
will not need to hold referenda this year
unless they plan to increase their basic
spending well beyond the cost of living.

In the end these changes to school
funding will provide a new stability to
protect the quality of our education
system, while providing local taxpayers
with greater control over budget in-
creases in the local school district.

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tricts will be forced to use

referendums to raise needed
funds for educational programs is short-
term good news for homeowners and
just plain bad news for half the million
students in B.C.’s school system.

Referendums are responsible for the
severely underfunded, poor quality edu-
cation systems in many U.S. states and
we could well face a similar scenario for
B.C. in the near future.

We have a system of democracy in
public education. School boards are
elected to ensure that the public will is
done. If it is not, the trustees are
defeated next election. Referendums
create the illusion of direct democracy
but all they will do is _

guarantee inequities
between rich and poor
districts, destroy long-
term fiscal planning,
and make B.C. an edu-
cational backwater.
The B.C. government
insists in perpetuating
the myth that educa-
tion costs are too high
in B.C. They are not.
By all indices we are in
the middle, or bottom,
of the 10 provinces in
terms of per pupil ex-
penditures, compensa-
tion paid to employees,

nicipal budgets from 1985-87 before
climbing to eighth in 1988.

If school boards have been fiscally
irresponsible how is it B.C. is operating:
one of the least expensive systems in
Canada?

Trustees also take exception to the
minister's lack of consultation before
making his announcement on referen-
dums. We have been discussing educa-
tional reform with all the education
partners for the past two years and the
subject of referendums was never so
much as whispered.

The minister has listened to our re-
commendations on block funding and
we appreciate and support his actions in
‘this area. We are ex-
‘tremely disappointed,
-however, that he didn’t
‘see fit to use the same
‘process for referen-
‘dums. We thought it
‘was an honest process
to lead us away from
‘the education wars but
it appears the govern-
‘ment’s stated desire for
‘co-operation and con-

‘much rhetoric. Unfor-
‘tunately, it will be the
students and employ-
ees who suffer first,
and then our economy

class size, etc. The only
place we are the top is
in taxes paid by homeowners and this is
because the provincial government will
not pay its fair share. And now-these
already overtaxed homeowners will be
asked, through referendums to willingly
dig deeper into already stretched pock-
ets.

According to Statistics Canada,
B.C. ranked last among the 10 provine-
es in five separate measures of total
education expenditures from 1985-87.
In 1988, B.C. remained last in three of
five of these indicators of education
spending in Canada, while climbing to
eighth and ninth in two others.

B.C.’s expenditures on education, in-
cluding post-secondary:

e ranked last as a percentage of person-
al income from 1985-87;

e ranked last as a percentage of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) from 1985-88;
¢ ranked last per capita of labour force
between 1985-88;

e ranked last in expenditures per capi-
ta from 1985-87, before climbing to
ninth place in 1988;

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CHARLES HINGSTON

and social fabric. It’s
hot much of a legacy to
contemplate.

Class sizes balloon as funds are gra-
dually reduced, in real terms, from year
to year; student dropout numbers in-
crease (B.C. already loses 30 per cent of
its students before graduation): teach-
ers become increasingly demoralized
and fewer young people view teaching
as a promising profession (contributing
to a teacher shortage that is affecting
B.C. already); buildings and vehicles
deteriorate; and in about a decade peo-
ple will wake up and realize that our
education system is suffering from
acute malnutrition.

This is the most damaging and ill-
considered government action in my
mine years as a trustee. The biggest
problem is that only about 30 per cent of
the people in the province have children
in school, the other 70 per cent may
view this so-called direct democracy as
welcome news without knowing how it
will affect the economy and our society
in the long-term. It truly is a black day
for our province.

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