School District 8 Refuses to Pay Victoria: Students Come First

by Suzy Hamilton, The Nelson Daily

School District 8 has told the Ministry of Education, no way. 

The BC government has asked school districts province-wide to  find a 1.5 per cent savings in their current budgets to fund a wage increase for district CUPE workers.  That amounts to $330,000 for the next two years in School District 8.

“It’s a tough ask,” said School District 8 Chair Mel Joy. “They’re giving us two months to find it….and we’re already halfway through the year.”

Joy said 83 percent of the District budget already covers salaries, benefits and pensions. “It’s almost like (they think) we’re running inefficiently to be able to come up with this money.” 

“To add $330,000 in CUPE wages and wage sensitive benefits under the cooperative gains mandate to an already significant shortfall of $1.13 million is beyond the Board’s ability to balance its budget without cutting educational programming to students and services to staff and families, “ Joy wrote to the Minister of Education Don MacRae in a letter dated December 18.

The shortfall, which Joy says is nothing new, comes from withdrawal of funding grants and increases to teacher pension plans.

The key feature of the Cooperative Gains Mandate is that it provides public sector employers with the ability to negotiate modest wage increases through productivity gains or through savings within existing budgets, resulting in actual increases in compensation.

This process deviates from the Board’s negotiating directly with unions, said Joy.

Joy said finding 1.5 percent savings in the budget of $50 million without affecting children---a stipulation of the government’s mandate---“is impossible. There is no way without affecting service to students,” she said.

Adding to the complications are that the teachers begin bargaining in the spring. “And we have to add in the (provincial) election issue.”

CUPE is presently at the bargaining table with the government.

“The government is offloading their responsibility to come up with the money,” said Joy. 

“Most certainly the Board of School District No. 8 strives to uphold public trust and confidence in public education,” she wrote.  “To deviate from these commitments would severely impair the Board in its service to its communities.”   

But she added: “Despite the Board’s inability to identify the savings the Minister requests, the co-governance model is such that the Board will work with government to come to resolve in balancing modest wage increases with quality delivery of public education to students, families and communities in School District No. 8.”

What happens as a result of this refusal to pay is unclear, said Joy.

“The ball is in their court.”

CUPE’s K-12 sector in BC includes 26,000 school support staff in most of the province’s 60 school districts. Members work in every support role within the public school system from helping children arrive at school to supporting students in the system and through clerical functions.

A CUPE spokesperson was unavailable for comment.