With a $4-million deficit looming, the Greater Victoria School District is holding a public meeting next week to collect input on budget priorities.
Greater Victoria School Board chair Nicole Duncan said the board will face “very challenging decisions” in dealing with the 2023-24 budget. The meeting is set for March 7.
Last year, the board faced a $7-million budget deficit and ended up cutting school music funding by 20 per cent, including taking $209,000 from elementary strings. A donation in June — including $125,000 from the Patrick McNally Foundation — allowed the strings program to continue running in the current school year.
Decisions to cut music programs to balance district budgets have led to vocal public backlash in the past few years. Two new trustees elected last fall — Karin Kwan and Emily Mahbobi — campaigned on a promise to protect music programs. Kwan was chair of the community group Advocacy for Music in Schools, a position she has since relinquished.
Tracey Humphreys, president of the Victoria Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, said protecting music programs from cuts was one of the reasons many of the 30 candidates ran for trustee seats on the nine-member board.
Budget discussions got underway last October, when a committee was formed to bring together trustees and administration, the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association and other union groups, VCPAC, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, the Urban Peoples’ House Indigenous Advisory and the Métis Nation of Greater Victoria.
Cindy Romphf, GVTA second-vice president and past-president of the Greater Victoria Music Educators Association, said options for music programs will be revealed at a Thursday meeting of the budget committee. “I’ll be there, but nobody knows what they’re presenting or what the options are.”
While donations saved the district’s elementary strings program last year, Romphf said there is concern about what will happen in September. “It’s definitely on our minds.”
Paula Marchese, who took over as chair of Advocacy for Music in Schools, is one of two parents on the committee and is also eager to hear what the music options are.
“We have been advocating strongly for the music funding to be added back to next year’s budget for elementary strings,” said Marchese, whose daughter took strings in Grade 5 and is now in Grade 12 band. “And we also hope to not see further cuts with middle-school music.”
Marchese said the elementary strings program is a valuable introduction to music and gives students an idea of what it’s like to play an instrument with others. “Hopefully they find their place in music, but I’m of the belief it’s great for kids to try all kinds of things in school.”
She said her group “feels passionately” that the program should be offered.
All members of the district community are invited to the March 7 meeting, including students, parents, guardians, staff and others, to hear presentations from superintendent Deb Whitten and secretary-treasurer Katrina Stride, and to ask questions.
The ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, static enrolment and inflation have all contributed to the budget deficit, the district said.
It said it will have to “find efficiencies and savings” to produce a balanced budget in the district of over 20,000 students, as mandated by the province, should current spending patterns continue.
More details of the committee’s work are available at sd61.bc.ca/our-district/financial.
Anyone wanting to participate in the March 7 meeting must register by 4 p.m. on March 6 at [email protected].
Feedback will continue to be accepted until March 17 via written submissions to [email protected].
The first reading of the budget bylaw will be on April 4, with passage on April 6.
The March 7 meeting will run from 6-8 p.m. at the Uplands Campus at 3461 Henderson Rd., just north of Foul Bay Road.
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