In the Surrey school district there are upwards of 70,000 students and an annual budget of $600 million, and it has seven trustees on the school board.
New Westminster is under a tenth of the population and the budget, but has the same number of school trustees making decisions about management, money and education.
Is it necessary? Could New Westminster make do with five school trustees, who earn an annual stipend of approximately $21,500 each? Dropping two, for example, would free up enough cash for at least an extra education assistant to work with students who have special needs.
Trustee candidate Mark Gifford said it’s a question he heard when out door knocking recently.
For the Kelvin father, having seven trustees on the board brings “balance.”
“The range of issues doesn’t change much on the scale,” Gifford said, referring to neighbouring Surrey.
“One concern with moving to five trustees is that there would be fewer new faces, unless we can increase voter turnout,” candidate Cort Ray Caldwell wrote in an email to The Record. “We see a number of veteran trustees who have a reliable base of seven to 10 per cent of registered voters turning out for them, and they get re-elected over and over. We wouldn’t have as much opportunity for the change the community wants within that model if turnout remains low.”
Incumbent Casey Cook said it is “possible” to make do with five trustees, but questioned the challenges around conflict of interest.
Cook removes himself from discussions on the budget related to Canadian Union of Public Employees because his daughter works as an education assistant in the district. “New Westminster, because it’s such a small town, it’s difficult getting people without connections … so given that fact, there is a possibility for conflict,” Cook said. “I have huge problem with undeclared conflict, and the reason you have seven trustees is so people can absent themselves.”
Still, in terms of cost savings, slicing the number of trustees could be looked at, Cook said.
Incumbent Jonina Campbell said she has considered the pros and cons of reducing the number of trustees.
“Obviously, the pro is a financial one,” she said. “In terms of how it’s challenging, we still have the same number of committee responsibilities and trustee responsibilities that have to be divvied up between the trustees we have.”
Losing two seats would mean less diversity and representation on the board, she said.
“It’s not something I wouldn’t consider, it’s just I think not as simple as a financial gain to the district,” Campbell said.
Fellow incumbent James Janzen said seven trustees is standard throughout the province, though if there were a groundswell of people wanting to change the number, the board could look into it.
Under the School Act, the Minister of Education has authority to vary the number of trustees in a school district. Boards wishing to vary the number of trustees in their district must follow the trustee variation guidelines, which are intended to assist the board in providing the minister with the information necessary to make a decision on the request. The procedures set out in the guidelines include consulting with the public on the proposed changes.
Incumbent Michael Ewen said he likes the number seven.
“It allows us to have a wide variety of people engaged in the process and have a wide variety of opinions,” he said.
Surrey, where he works as a teacher, is too big, in terms of its overall size, he noted.
“I think we want to have reasonable-sized school districts,” Ewen said. “New Westminster is medium-size school district in the province. It’s right on the average.”
The benefits of having a variety of people engaged in the process outweigh the “minor” savings of reducing trustees, he added.
Incumbent MaryAnn Mortensen questioned the number of trustees needed to reach quorum (a minimum number of people needed to conduct business). If quorum is three, she said, then “it’s three people making the decisions for the entire community.”
“But I’m not against trying to save money at the board level at all,” she added.
Candidate Jeremy Perry also worried that reducing the number of trustees would mean less diversity, expertise and fewer voices on the school board.
“I don’t think I would be stringently opposed to the idea but would have concerns about losing the diversity of thought off the board,” he said.
There should be a correlation between the size of a district and the number of trustees as well as the amount trustees are paid, candidate Kelly Slade-Kerr wrote in an email.
“While Surrey has the same number of trustees as New Westminster, Surrey trustees receive almost 50 per cent more pay than their New West counterparts,” she wrote, noting this is likely a reflection of the increased workload for those trustees.
If a reduction in the number of trustees means an increase in trustee pay, her preference is for a larger number of trustees and the increased likelihood of a board with a broad range of skills and perspectives, she wrote.
Meanwhile, candidate Jim Bell asked “Why not eliminate it completely?”
“If that district doesn’t start to get really innovative right away, it might as well join up with Burnaby,” he told The Record.
