Staffing, bus service cuts likely for school districts
Posted April 12, 2013 11:39 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DELTA (NEWS1130) – School boards across the province are once again having to decide what stays and what goes, while they try to balance budgets.
Two local school boards will likely have to slash staffing levels.
The Delta school board is going to be $3.46 million in the red, and it’s losing half of its transportation funding.
Board chair Laura Dixon says that could mean a major reduction in school bus service.
“That affects students we are bussing to cross major intersections and students that are being bussed because they live beyond a certain distance from their catchment area. It even represents some of the dollars that we use to bus students with special needs,” she explains.
She says they can’t keep dipping into the contingency fund to balance the books.
“Our reserves are going down to a fine level. Everyone needs to have a rainy-day, we-have-a-leaky-roof fund. We have to have something by way of reserves.”
In Coquitlam, parents are getting letters saying that school board is $12.2 million in the red. The board says it will likely translate into staff layoffs.
Because Coquitlam and Delta have declining enrolment, they receive reduced amounts of money from the province.
