Surrey Now: 2008 April 29
Jessica Kerr
Delta school trustees heard pleas last week to save certain areas from cuts as they continue to struggle with difficult budget deliberations.
Those in attendance at a pair of public meetings acknowledged the Delta school board has difficult decisions ahead. The school district is facing a shortfall of $3.08 million, which has the board considering cutting 26 full-time equivalent positions, as well as reductions to several other areas, in order to produce a balanced budget.
"This is bad, and will probably get worse," said Colin Pawson, president CUPE Local 1091, at Tuesday's meeting.
"At least 26 families will have their family income impacted. This is the human cost of these cuts," he said.
The deficit, the worst the board has seen in almost a decade, can be attributed to a number of factors - a loss in government grant funding, a decline in student enrolment and a decrease in the number of international students.
Cuts will impact a wide range of areas, including administration, custodial, teacher-librarians, clerical and educational assistants. The board is looking at reducing teacher-librarian time in some of the smaller elementary schools as well as reducing educational assistant time for special needs students by an average of five hours per week per elementary school.
Val Windsor, president of the Delta Teachers' Association, called it an "equal opportunity depressing budget."
"When the district is striving to maintain the goal of literacy... when you're cutting out time from the library you're cutting at the heart of that."
Windsor appealed to the board to submit two budgets to the Ministry of Education - a balanced budget, which the school district is legally required to do, and a "needs" budget, which will show the government how much funding the district needs to maintain its current levels of staff and programs.
The two special meetings were a chance for stakeholders and the public to offer input into the proposed budget. The board will vote on the budget today (Tuesday).
