The Greater Victoria School Board is asking the province for more funding, citing the rising cost of everything from staff benefits to toilet paper.
Nicole Duncan noted that a $6-million deficit for 2024-25 meant the board had to make $4.1 million in cuts to staff, supplies and travel budgets to help balance the budget.
WorkSafe BC and extended health and dental premiums cost almost $2 million more in the 2024-25 budget than in 2023-24, she wrote in the letter to Education Minister Rachna Singh and Premier David Eby.
Fuel is up 43.1 per cent in Victoria since 2018, the letter said, while the district had to spend $100,000 more on custodial supplies like paper towels and toilet paper in 2023-24 because of increasing costs.
Duncan also pointed to the rising cost of technology, noting the cost of a Chromebook has risen by 43 per cent since 2018-19.
The board chair said the district receives only $48,000 a year from the province for mental health programs, which it supplements with an additional $48,000 from its operating fund.
“We also wish to highlight that students in our school district have been vocal about the lack of mental-health support,” she wrote
The letter acknowledged an increase in the district’s annual facility grant, but said more is needed to deal with an estimated $325 million worth of deferred maintenance in the district.
It said funding for capital projects is appreciated, but new buildings can fill up right away and lead to costs to the district to add portables.
“We appreciate that provincial governments have many competing priorities to consider when determining how best to allocate public funds across program areas,” she said.
“However, unfunded inflationary costs continue to effectively reduce our operating grant funding, directly impacting available program funding for the 2023-24 school year.”
The province has said that operating funds for school districts have increased steadily since 2017, and average funding is now $13,000 per student.
The total budget for kindergarten-Grade 12 education in 2024/25 is $8 billion, including special grants, the province said — a 50 per cent increase from 2016-17.
It said the Greater Victoria School District is getting $80 million more in provincial funding than it did in 2016-17.
Meanwhile, Singh recently ordered the district to produce an updated safety plan.
While the order doesn’t directly reference a 2023 decision by the board to cancel its police school-liaison officer program, the cancellation has been a source of friction between the board and police leaders.
Singh’s order asks the board to collaborate with area police departments in developing the safety plan, amid rising concerns about criminal gangs recruiting youth in area high schools.
