The Saanich school board reversed course Tuesday night and will now present a balanced budget for 2011-12 after the provincial government released funds that almost matched the amount the board needed to avoid more cuts for students.
The board voted unanimously in favour of presenting a balanced budget, after earlier voting three times against doing so.
The change was $171,289 released last week by the education ministry. The so-called 聯holdback聰 funds 聴 money that is held back in case of enrolment growth 聴 are not usually released this early in the year.
But after Saanich threatened to be the only school board not to present a balanced budget to the government by June 30, as is mandated by law, the holdback funds were released.
聯This is a win,聰 said trustee Elsie McMurphy. 聯The fact that the number we received at the eleventh hour was so close to what we need to balance the budget was not a coincidence. The government, by doing that, has acknowledged the worth and merit of our case.聰
The additional holdback funds mean that further reductions do not have to be made to the supplies for students and district supplies budgets.
The board approved a higher, unbalanced budget in April. It reaffirmed that twice. But a special meeting of the board was called for Tuesday after the board received a letter from Education Minister George Abbott. Abbott wrote that he recognized that these are 聯financially challenging times,聰 but reiterated there were no additional funds.
聯I am, however, always interested in hearing suggestions about how to improve our funding models and how to better sustain and support rural and other districts experiencing enrolment decline,聰 Abbott wrote.
Board chairwoman Helen Parker said she called a special board meeting to consider Abbott聮s response and whether there was any new information that would resolve the budget issues.
There are still problems with the funding formula for Saanich, with its declining enrolment, trustees said, but they were heartened at Abbott聮s seeming willingness for discussion.
If the board did not present a balanced budget, it ran the risk of being summarily fired and replaced with an official trustee, as happened to a North Vancouver school board in the 1990s when it presented a deficit budget to then NDP education minister Paul Ramsey. The same happened to Vancouver district trustees in the 1980s. They were fired by the Social Credit government.
