The Vancouver School Board released a letter and handy infographic that detailed what the district claimed to perennial underfunding since 2002/03.
Based on a 10-year comparison to 2002/03 provincial funding levels, the VSB estimated that it is currently operating under a shortfall of $47 million.
In 2013/14, $486 million in funding will be provided to Vancouver.
But, even with a shrinking student population, according to the reporting of the Tyee’s Katie Hyslop, the VSB stated:
“The district’s base operating budget 11 years ago was $415 million. Taking into account salary increases, collective agreement increases and changes to employee benefits, turnover, enrolment levels, cost increases, and inflation, Landry and Krowchuk calculated the cost of the services provided in 2002/03 would be $533 million today.”
Yet, what a strange way, and perhaps waste of resources, to try to prove a fiscal argument.
What justification is there to use 2002/03 as a benchmark year? Further, how can an arbitrary year’s fiscal history be reason for a present need? I’m certain if teachers were using 10-year old history books, they would think it grossly inadequate for 2013. The economy was different back then, using decade-old comparisons is like recalling salary increases of the ’90s and using it as justification for a raise in 2013 — isn’t it or am I missing something?
As mentioned, elementary and secondary student enrolment levels in Vancouver have consistently dropped since 2002 from just over 55,000, to around 50,000 by 2012, yet BCTF salaries and benefits have gone up.
Here is a list of BCTF members’ salaries for the Vancouver school district.
The calculated 2012 living wage rate for Metro Vancouver is $19.62 per hour. Even at the lowest pay grade, Category 4 Step 0, a teacher makes above the standard living wage rate for the city.
However, every time the teachers strike and picket for new a collective agreement, its (almost) always about increasing wages or salary and benefits — and all the power to them.
But what about the students?
They are used as political pawns in the capitalist game to financial providence, while the youth of B.C., and in the rest of Canada, are jobless, with surmounting debt and diminishing hope.
Take a look (After page 5) at the extravagant salaries of Vancouver superintendents and treasurer. Surrey and other district supers too receive similar or greater salary packages.
The VSB’s infographic displays $31.5 million in lost staffing, which would have included 524 entry level teacher’s jobs. Plus, another $15.5 million in supplies lost.
These are speculative numbers of course.
But what’s real is the salaries and money going into the pockets of union members who time and again use students as leverage to securing increasing amounts of funding.
During last year’s dispute, B.C. teachers refused to lead extra-curricular activities in protest to the government’s handling of the labour relations snafu. The teacher’s, among other tenets, sought 15 per cent wage increases over the following three years. The government summarily denied such demands and the situation was eventually resolved.
Unions should be held under the same scrutiny as government. The VSB’s latest plea appears at a superficial glance as another juking of the stats in an attempt to turn the faucet on just a little more, and quite timely when you consider the election just around the corner.
Surrey BC'er 