Stakeholders have given their two cents as Nanaimo Ladysmith school district begins crafting its budget for the 2025-26 school year.
According to a preliminary overview, a budget with $189 million in expenses is forecast, along with enrolment of 15,494 full-time students, up from the 15,280 recorded last September. At a committee meeting April 9, Mark Walsh, school district secretary-treasurer, said the continued upward trajectory in student numbers has Nanaimo-Ladysmith "in a fortuitous space," however, inflation and other factors will still make SD68's financial picture "tight."
Close to $82 million is projected for teacher salaries, a year-over-year increase of $921,000. For education assistants, there will be a salary increase of close to $77,000, to $14.7 million and for support staff, an increase of $120,000 to $14.5 million. Over $11 million is earmarked for administrative positions, representing a $315,000 increase from 2024.
At a board meeting April 23, Jo Cornthwaite, Nanaimo District Teachers' Association union president, said she appreciated the school district's efforts, but wondered about the "multiple additional administrative positions created in the last couple months" and how this would impact the "front-line needs of students … with the additional layers of administration." The union is asking for more staffing for the district's distance- and distributed-learning school, Island Connect Ed.
"It's different work than a traditional classroom, but that doesn't mean it's less work," she said. "We acknowledge that those ratios are … not something that's protected by collective agreement language, but again caseloads are high for those teachers [and] demands are also high. Our ask is if there's additional staffing to be placed, that Island Connect Ed is one of the places it goes."
Jeff Virtanen, CUPE Local 606 education support workers union president, was also grateful for the school district's work in crafting the budget. The expansion of before- and after-school care is "huge," he said, and a chance for education assistants to get more hours, which he added are needed.
"We appreciate the increased hours of some of the EA positions, but we still have way too many EAs in the 27-hour range," Virtanen said. "And it's not just EAs – cafeteria attendants, library clerks … they all need more hours too."
Getting to 35 hours won't happen in one budget cycle, he acknowledged, but added that if the district keeps that goal in mind, there could come a day when all "precarious" workers are able to make a livable wage.
The budget currently carries a $200,231 deficit, but the district is mandated by the B.C. Ministry of Education to pass a balanced budget. A staff report stated the district is "still working [its] way through some final cost-saving adjustments in order to balance the budget, and the final preliminary annual budget will include the final cost-saving measures."
"We're confident that's going to be solved without major resource implication to our students," Walsh said at the April 9 meeting.
Budget deliberations will continue and a final preliminary budget is expected to be presented at a committee meeting Wednesday, May 7.
School districts in the province have a deadline of June 30 to adopt budget bylaws.
