Feedback on School District 57’s budget for the 2025-26 focused on more resources to be provided for staffing, mental health supports and more money spent in the classroom instead of on administrative expenses.
The Board of Education gathered at the district’s administration building at 2100 Ferry Ave. in Prince George on Tuesday, April 29 to go over input from unions, partner groups, staff and members of the public in a meeting of the committee of the whole.
Board chair Craig Brennan was not present at the meeting and vice-chair Erica McLean led the meeting. Trustees Cory Antrim and Rachael Weber were not present, while Trustee Bob Thompson joined the meeting remotely.
District administration’s initial draft budget for the next school year, which was presented at the April 8 board meeting, proposed operating costs of around $108 million, special purpose funds of around $21.8 million and capital costs of just over $10 million.
At the beginning of the evening, secretary-treasurer Lynda Minnabarriet explained to trustees that the purpose of the meeting was to allow them to ask questions on feedback collected through the budget process.
Starting off the discussion, Trustee Sarah Holland noted that much of the feedback received by the district was about staff recruitment and retention.
Supt. Jameel Aziz explained that while the Northern Interior Branch of the BC School Trustees Association has been advocating to the province that more funding is needed for recruitment and retention, there’s no increase to the district’s line items for those purposes in this year’s budget.
Holland also asked about an expressed desire for more student funding supports expressed in the feedback, especially relating to mental health.
Aziz said the budget for mental health, wellness and counselling supports remains the same as in the 2024-25 school year budget.
He noted that there had been some consideration given to removing a mental health and wellness position in Valemount in last year’s budget, but the board had ultimately decided against making that cut.
However, he said he believes a future discussion is needed on the financial sustainability of that position.
Trustee Shar McCrory brought up the “astronomical” number of letters of permission being applied for. Those letters, if approved, allow unlicensed teachers who have not received teacher training to work in a school district or for a First Nations council for up to a year at a time.
According to Aziz, the issue of unlicensed teachers is an issue for the entire northern interior region. He said many of these people would like to eventually become certified teachers and there are conversations with post-secondary institutions to offer more online opportunities to allow that to happen.
While a provincial agency has added extra staff hours to help process these letters, Aziz said it’s not a problem that school districts are in a place to rectify.
Though the school district has a surplus this year, there is no guarantee that there will be another next year. Because of that, he said he doesn’t want to see surplus funds spent on ongoing items, but one-time expenses.
“I don’t want to start something that we can’t complete,” Aziz said.
The superintendent said that School District 57 not having to make cuts this year is a luxury borne out of costs and financial prudence instituted last year.
In the original 2025-26 draft budget, there was a projected surplus of around $300,000. Now that the board has decided to close Giscome Elementary School at the end of the year, a staff report said the expected surplus has risen to around $600,000.
The district is also projecting a surplus of around $1.2 million for the 2024-25 school year.
Holland said colleagues with the British Columbia School Trustees Association told her that they were having difficult conversations with their constituents about cuts in their communities.
She said she saw in the budget survey that some people have a perception that too much is being spent on administrative expenses in this year’s draft budget.
Aziz said he wanted to clarify that though the document talk about “public” feedback, more than 50 per cent of respondents to the district’s survey were submitted by staff and that should be kept in mind when looking through the results.
He reiterated that he didn’t want to use surplus dollars to establish ongoing expenses, instead using them for one-time expenses like the purchases of new computers or painting district buildings.
He also said there probably isn’t a good understanding of the structure and workings of school district administrations not just locally, but across the province.
Referencing the draft budget, Holland asked whether that meant that proposed staffing enhancements were no longer being recommended.
In the initially proposed draft budget, administration had suggested $650,000 worth of budget enhancements for the board to consider.
That included a 0.5 full-time equivalent position to add a vice-principal position leading curriculum and innovation, a full-time equivalent teaching position for a district lead in technology in learning and a full-time equivalent leadership position for Indigenous education, which would have cost the district an estimated $436,000.
The superintendent confirmed these items were no longer included on administration’s list of enhancements, which instead focuses on one-time expenditures. An updated list of recommendations was not made publicly available at the meeting, but staff said it would be in time for the next board meeting in May where the budget is deliberated.
McCrory asked Aziz what the district could do better to recruit and retain staff.
He said there had been some “solid” suggestions from the district union partners, but that it would require external funding from the provincial level to implement.
It’s important, he said, to show the public that School District 57 is stable after negative events in recent years. He said he thinks that public perception is changing for the better and it would help potential staff consider opportunities within the district.
Last month, Aziz said, he met with the district’s principals. Part of that discussion was regarding the challenges facing rural schools, like only being able to offer certain courses every two years instead of every year.
Holland asked what the district is doing to improve funding to rural schools.
At the high school level, Aziz said there’s a different allocation for full-time equivalent positions at urban and rural schools because rural schools tend to have fewer students and a lower student-to-staff ratio.
He said he believes rural schools in the district have the resources to offer strong core programming.
Minnabarriet chimed in to say that she doesn’t think it can be underscored enough that SD57 isn’t having to make the same kind of difficult funding decisions its peers in other parts of the province are, thanking staff for making that possible.
Holland said for those listening into the meeting that she believes the provincial government needs to provide more funding to school districts.
McCrory said she thought BC needs to revise its funding formula for education, though she felt the district isn’t doing enough to meet students’ needs with what it is currently given.
She added that she thought the feedback received from the public and from partner groups should be considered as the board deliberates the budget in May.
Aziz said that last year, when the district was facing severe cuts, there was more than 900 individual pieces of feedback. This year, there were around 100.
“It’s very clear to me that when things are being proposed to be eliminated or reduced or removed, then we hear a lot of public voice,” Aziz said. “I would suggest that the feedback received this year does suggest that people perhaps do not have the same level of concern.”
In difficult times, Minnabarriet said, people look to prioritize what is most important. She said she thought the district needing to go through that exercise in previous years was a valuable experience, though a painful one at times.
Thompson said that approach should be taken every year, even if there is a surplus, as there will never be enough money to do everything and it allows the district to get the best bang for its buck.
As the board heads into budget talks at its next regular meeting on Tuesday, May 13 at 5 p.m., McLean said she was getting the impression from trustees that nothing was off the table for how the district’s surplus would be spent.
For that meeting, Holland said she’d like to see more information on what the district could do to save for the future.
That next board meeting will be held in the library of Mackenzie Secondary School, though it will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person.
