VSB softens tone in war of words over budget

Vancouver School Board chair Patti Bacchus has softened her tone after offering to write the board's budget on "prettier paper" in response to a government order to draft a revised and balanced budget incorporating recommendations from an advisor.

In a conference Thursday, Margaret MacDiarmid said the VSB must submit its draft budget for review by June 23, the day the board is scheduled to vote on its final 2010-2011 budget.

School board chair Patti Bacchus rejected that request almost immediately, and said that apart from some minor tweaks, the draft would remain largely unchanged.

"I can put it on some prettier paper for her," she told reporters. "I'd have to laugh if this wasn't really serious."

She also described MacDiarmid's order as a "distorted, politically motivated attack on the board."

The board will, however, hold two public consultation meetings on June 14 and 17 to discuss the budget, and plans to submit a draft to MacDiarmid by June 18.

In a letter sent to MacDiarmid later Thursday afternoon, Bacchus softened her tone, writing:

"I can assure you that we have directed our senior management team to develop a balanced budget and I can assure you that they will revise the current proposal will full consideration of the comptroller general's budget recommendations, and in fact had already considered the relevant options well before our budget process was interrupted by her appointment and review."

The education ministry has been locked in a war of words with the school board since March, when the board announced that it was facing an $18-million budget shortfall.

The VSB later revised that figure down to $16.3 million, but has said it will have to make drastic cuts to staffing and programs.

In response to what she called "unacceptable" proposed cuts, MacDiarmid assigned comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland to review the school board's books in April.

Wenezenki-Yolland released her report on Friday, slamming trustees for poor financial management and a lack of strategic planning, and identified $12 million worth of revenue and cost-savings measures like closing schools and charging higher rental fees.

Bacchus has said that many of the recommendations in the report are already being considered by the board, but that none of the recommendations are feasible in the short term.