Money troubles - the New Westminster school district has them in spades.
The district has a hefty $2.8-million deficit from last year, and it's had to slice away a big chunk - about $2.2 million - from this year's budget, but it's done that mainly by putting off expenses and making short-term fixes. It's a strategy that might help the district squeak by this year with a near-balanced budget, but moving forward the district has "structural" concerns - budget issues that are deep-rooted, including the ever-increasing cost of substitute teachers, leasing expenses (almost $1 million a year) and maintenance costs.
The board of education is looking into where to cut back on those structural costs, but it's doing so behind closed doors because personnel issues are involved, trustee Casey Cook told The Record.
"There is nothing, right now, that we can say, except that we are working hard on it," Cook said.
The board has made a number of cuts this year to services, supplies and staffing, as well as delaying saving for the replacement of the Massey Theatre and the skateboard park at Mercer Stadium.
But Cook said it is not effective in the longterm to put a budget together by cutting around the edges.
"A lot of those things were delay this, delay this, delay that; well, you can't do that on an ongoing basis. What you have to do is you have to get at that structural deficit," Cook said.
The two-term trustee said it would be "premature" for him to say where the board should start cutting to balance the books.
Last fall, the school district hired a consultant named Joan Axford to come in and review the budget after it was learned that the district had a surprise deficit from last year.
"What Axford laid down is the blue print for what we are doing," said Cook, who is a Voice New Westminster member.
The Voice trustees - Lisa Graham and MaryAnn Mortensen- are sometimes in opposition with labour-endorsed trustee Michael Ewen, Jonina Campbell, James Janzen and David Phelan, but Cook said they are all in agreement "that we simply can't continue going the way we are, and we have to find answers that are sustainable and protect the classroom."
The district recently faced another setback when secretary-treasurer Brian Sommerfeldt, who is responsible for putting together the district's budget, went on medical leave.
The district isn't saying when or if he will return to his post. In the meantime, assistant superintendent Al Balanuik is overseeing the more than $60-million budget.
Cook commended Balanuik for stepping in.
"Everybody is on an incredible learning curb, including staff," Cook said. "These folks have to put in an incredible amount of time and effort, at the same time they have a school district that they need to run."
