Parents and teachers want to know how the Burnaby school board plans to spend the extra $1 million returned to the district by the ministry of education last month.
In February 2015, the ministry announced districts around B.C. would have to trim a combined $54 million in “administrative savings” from their budgets – $29 million for the 2015/16 school year and $25 million for 2016/17.
Last month, the government said it had decided to redirect the $25 million for 2016/17 back to the districts.
For Burnaby schools, that will mean an extra $1,027,783 cash for next year.
But, while some B.C. boards have called extra budget meetings to decide what to do with the windfall, Burnaby Teachers’ Association president Rae Figursky said the local board has yet to announce any plan.
“I don’t think they’ve done anything,” she told the NOW Wednesday morning, “so we don’t know what they plan on doing.”
The local teachers union sent the board a letter on June 15, requesting the district use the extra funds to hire about 12 more teachers next year.
The District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC), meanwhile, has also pressed the board for clarification about its plan for the money in a letter read out at a public school board meeting June 13 by outgoing chair Jen Mezei.
“We hope that some of the funds redistributed to Burnaby will be used to address the issues and concerns that were brought forward by school representatives and parents during our district budget consultation process last month,” Mezei said, “such as increasing counsellor time, more supports for special needs students and increases to custodial hours to provide coverage for custodial absences.”
Chair Ron Burton told the NOW no decisions have been made yet about how the extra money will be spent next year, and the board will probably schedule an extra finance committee meeting during the summer to formulate a plan.
“We’ll try and deal with it before next September, so we have things in place, like if we have to hire other EAs or teachers or that, we have it done for next year.”
As for getting input from parents or teachers during the decision making process, Burton said partner groups already gave their input during budget consultations this spring and in the letters they sent.
