For the past several years, the Prince Rupert School District has had to look at ways of balancing the books in light of declining enrolment and declining money coming from Victoria.
This year is no exception, but this year the district did something no school board in the province should have to do — it used almost $1 million of accumulated surplus to balance the budget without making major cuts that would take teachers and resources out of the classroom.
Think about that for a second — it would be the equivalent of spending your entire savings account to pay your grocery bill to simply sustain yourself.
And the problem comes when you look at the future of the district. Much like groceries, a balanced budget is something that is going to need to be achieved over and over again. Only next year there won’t be an accumulated surplus to fall back on because it had to be spent this year.
It’s a grim picture in light of continuing enrolment declines. This year, the provincial government will be providing $366,000 less than it did the previous year.
Perhaps the Cabinet Ministers in Victoria don’t realize this because they have never had a portion of their salaries or office expenses hacked by such a large number, but you simply cannot achieve the same level of service with less money.
It’s an impossibility; if you want to keep the same level of service you need to have the same level of resources available to you. If you don’t have that same level of resources, then the only solution is to reduce the level of service.
In this case, the people that suffer when that happens is the students of the Prince Rupert School District, a district that has already been through tough times and lived through the closure of three schools in the community.
Rather than investing in infrastructure in the Lower Mainland, how about investing in the future of the North Coast?