School district officials around the province are still waiting to hear whether their plans to pay for the recent wage increase for school support staff will be approved.
The savings plans are currently with the ministry of finance and being reviewed to ensure they meet the BC government’s cooperative gains mandate. According to information from the ministry, it is expected the reviews will be completed by the end of December.
School District 47 secretary treasurer Steve Hopkins said he expected the review process to be ongoing and for Powell River’s plan to be among the first to be approved.
Hopkins is concerned that if the government waits until the new year to approve the plans it will further complicate matters. One part of the wage increase is retroactive to July 1, 2013. “Not that it’s undoable,” he said. “It’s just way easier to deal with it in the year you’re in.”
Many people were relieved in September when the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) announced it had reached a new framework agreement with the provincial government for a new contract and a strike was averted. The framework agreement included a 3.5 per cent wage increase over two years.
Despite the framework agreement being agreed to at the provincial bargaining table, the province’s boards of eduction, many of whom sent letters to the minister of education in support of raising school support staff wages, were told that the agreement had been made within the government’s cooperative gains mandate which stipulated that there would be no new money for wage increases.
According to information from the ministry of finance, all public sector employers, including school districts, were directed to work with responsible ministries and employer bargaining agents to develop savings plans to free up funding from within existing budgets to provide modest compensation increases.
School districts were given until October 15 to file a savings plan to show how budgets would be rearranged to pay for the increases, with the suggestion to look at reducing support staff levels, benefits, numbers of part-time and replacement workers.
Jeanette Scott, Powell River Board of Education chair, has expressed concern that after many years of declining enrolment and working within the confines of shrinking budgets there is nothing left to cut.
School district officials have said they will make details of the savings plan public when it is approved by the ministry.
