Inflation is top of mind for School District 63's returning board chair.
The new board of education was elected at the Saanich School District Nov. 4 annual general meeting, where Central Saanich's Tim Dunford was re-elected as board chair for the 2025-26 term.
Dunford, who’s on his sixth term, tells Peninsula News Review that the priority for SD63 is to increase funding to meet the cost of inflation.
“Saanich is a relatively small to medium-sized school district with stable or low growth, so we don't have some of the urgencies other growing districts have.”
The board chair says that in the last two years, the school district has been looking for an extra $1 million, purely for unfunded inflationary costs like fuel, supplies and benefit premiums for employees, to name a few.
"We had to call on our contingency fund and reserves to fund those."
Dunford says they’re asking the B.C. Ministry of Education to augment the money that's given to SD63 to operate the school district as well as recognize that inflation is above and beyond the numbers of student enrolment.
In other words, while the student population remains roughly the same, the costs escalate.
“What it looks like is that if we don't ultimately get relief by way of increased funding for inflation, we're going to have to someday, and perhaps not too far away, look at reducing services and nobody wants that,” he added.
Each school district in the province is given the lion's share of its funding from the ministry.
SD63 has met with outgoing minister Rachna Singh twice, and although receptive to their advocacy, nothing has come out of those meetings yet as far as their request for additional funding is concerned.
Dunford cites the need to relook at the funding model based primarily on student enrolment which does not include some relief to unfunded inflationary cost.
While adequate funding remains a priority for SD63, the school district is busy implementing its strategic plan for 2022 to 2027, which also prioritizes literacy, Indigenous learner success, mental health and wellness and global citizenship.
