2011 News
Langley Advance: Budget targets shortfall
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
February 25, 2011
A $156.4 million public school budget was approved at Langley school board’s special Feb. 22 meeting.
It includes more than $3.75 million in cuts towards the district’s four-year plan to pay down a $13.5-million deficit.
The meeting was held Tuesday to allow time for public input while still meeting Ministry of Education deadlines.
“I received no questions back from anybody, the public or anybody,” commented secretary-treasurer Dave Green.
Trustees praised staff’s efforts on the budget.
Trustee Alison McVeigh acknowledged the difficulty of creating the budget with its millions of dollars in cuts, “because we all know that people’s careers are impacted.”
She said the current shortfall necessitating the cuts resulted from a combination of overspending by the district and under-funding by the provincial government. Read more
Langley Advance: Long spring break could save tax dollars
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
Feb 18, 2011
Hey kids, how does two weeks off at spring break sound?
What about a longer school day or taking a long weekend off when Remembrance Day falls on a Tuesday or Thursday?
Different calendar configurations are one of the options the Langley School District is examining in its quest to cut an average of $3.75 million each year over the next four years.
During budget discussions at the Feb. 15 school board meeting, trustee Rob MacFarlane received approval from the rest of the board for his idea to have staff examine the implications of a two-week spring break.
“I think it’s important this gets a careful look,” he said.
Trustee Rod Ross made a friendly amendment that will see staff creating a report to examine various calendar changes. The board asked for both the financial and educational implications of schedule changes.
After the meeting, Ross explained that this is not the first time the district has amended its schedule due for financial reasons. Just under a decade ago, the district modified the calendar as a temporary fix. Read more
Contact Langley MLAs
MLA Rich Coleman, Fort-Langley-Aldergrove (BC Liberal & Minister of Housing & Social Services)
- Email: rich-coleman.mla@leg.bc.ca
- Constituency office: 130 – 7888 20th Street, Langley, V2Y 3J4, Telephone: 604 882-3151
MLA Mary Polak, Langley (BC Liberal – also serves as Children’s Minister
- Email: mary.polak.mla@leg.bc.ca
- Constituency office: 102 – 20611 Fraser Highway, Langley, V3A 4G4, Telephone: 604 514-8206
2010 Archives
The Langley School Board passed its 2010-11 budget in June, authorizing $7 million in cuts for September to offset unfunded new costs and other budget pressures. However, that budget still left the district $13.5 million in the red, with the Board proposing to pay off that debt over several years. Local school boards are not allowed to run deficits, so it was unclear whether the Education Ministry would grant special permission for this. In July, the Ministry confirmed that Langley would be allowed to pay off the debt over four years.
A lack of transparency and public consultation over the Board’s development of the 2010-11 budget was another point of concern raised in Langley. The jury is still out on exactly how this school district rang up a $13.5 Million dollar debt that must now be repaid to the provincial government (on top of the additional deficit facing all boards this year), but one thing is certain – Langley’s public school students will pay dearly for the failures, with deep cuts to programs and staffing in September and coming years.
Read more
In the news
The Tyee: The Double Whammy facing Langley’s schools
Katie Hyslop, The Tyee
September 8, 2010
Tight provincial spending plus a deficit of at least $13.5 million equal anger, accusations and a tense wait for the auditor’s verdict.
Susan Fonseca always looks forward to this time of year. As a secondary teacher and president of the Langley Teachers Association, September means the beginning of school with new chances to improve education and enhance the lives of the children in her community.
But this year Fonseca and her fellow educators have more to look forward to than new classes and students eager to learn. They’re anticipating the release of the provincial auditor general’s report on the Langley School Board’s financial mismanagement that led to a debt of $13.5 million.
It’s a burden made worse by the $7-million shortfall in the 2010/11 budget announced by the board this past spring.
“Langley has basically the double whammy of the effects of the provincial underfunding and also the impact of the accumulated debt that it has from previous years of financial mismanagement,” Fonseca told The Tyee. Read more
Langley Advance: Teachers’ union seeks MLA help
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
July 13, 2010
The union representing teachers in the local public schools finally got to sit down with a local MLA.
The Langley Teachers’ Association has been asking for months to meet with Fort Langley-Aldergrove MLA Rich Coleman and Langley MLA Mary Polak, and for them to become more vocal about local education.
The Langley School District is tackling a $13.5-million debt/deficit. Read more
Langley Times: Public will have to wait for Auditor General’s report
Natasha Jones, Langley Times
July 13, 2010
The Auditor-General’s report into the financial function of the Langley School District is expected at any time, but it may be weeks before the public learns of its contents.
Requested by the board of trustees and superintendent Cheryle Beaumont, the examination of the district’s financial control framework is one of three aspects of the A-G’s involvement in the district.
It is separate from the Auditor-General’s appointment as financial auditor for the district for the 2010/11 school year, and the A-G’s role in overseeing the 2009-10 financial audit.
A spokesman for the Auditor-General’s office said on Tuesday that the report “will not be released on a public basis” and that it would be released only at the discretion of the board.
The board is not due to meet until Sept. 2 for an in-camera session, and the first public meeting of the 2010/11 school year is not until Sept. 21. Read more
Langley Times: School district debt elimination proposal approved
Natasha Jones, Langley Times
July 13, 2010
Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid has approved the Langley board of education’s plan to eliminate the district’s $13.5 million operating deficit.
The minister has also given the district more time than the three years which trustees and senior managers had requested, allowing the district four school years to eliminate its debt.
The district had submitted a Deficit Elimination Plan last autumn, hoping for at least three years to repay the millions of dollars that were overspent as a result of finance department miscalculations and inadequate controls.
The district, which immediately found ways to trim spending by eliminating a senior manager and his $131,000 annual salary last October, then re-submitted a Deficit Elimination Plan last winter.
MacDiarmid has now given the district until June 30, 2015, to eliminate the debt.
“We have worked very hard to gain approval for this plan,” board chairman Joan Bech said last week. “Now we will have to work just as hard to ensure Langley School District never again finds itself in a similar situation.”
The first financial miscalculations were made in the 2008-09 school year. Further errors occurred when the board made decisions for the 2009-10 budget that were based on inaccurate projections for revenue and expenditure.
At its June 16 meeting, the board approved a balanced budget for 2010-2011, the first step in reorganizing its finances.
Although it has already eliminated jobs, programs and one bus route to balance the 2010/11 budget, the district will not begin paying down the accumulated deficit until the 2011-12 school year.Beginning with that school year, Langley will budget $3.375 million annually to pay down the debt.
As head of the finance department, it is the secretary-treasurer’s responsibility to guide the district through that debt elimination. However, as of this week, the district is still be without a secretary-treasurer.
Dave Greenan, hired on an interim basis to replace Wayne Braun, left on June 16. Braun stepped down unexpectedly in December, after only three months on the job to replace Peter Greenwood. Read more
Langley Advance: School deficit plan approved
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
July 8, 2010
Langley School District’s plan to eliminate its $13.5 million debt and deficit shortfall, which was submitted to the provincial government in the spring, has has been approved by education minister Margaret MacDiarmid.
“Langley’s board of education wishes to thank the minister and her staff for understanding the very difficult situation this school district has found itself in,” Langley board chair Joan Bech said in a press elease.
Langley schools will have until June 30, 2015, to get its books in order.
The district already went ahead with the cuts set out in the plan, while it was still awaiting word from the ministry.
According to the plan, the district will cut $3.375 million from its annual budgets, starting in 2011-2012.
The deficit, incurred in the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 operating years, was due to financial errors and inadequate financial controls, which resulted in the board making decisions based on inaccurate revenue and expenditure projections, according to the board’s announcement on the plan approval. Read more
Langley Times: Dysfunctional board a challenge
Frank Bucholtz, Langley Times
July 6, 2010
Many parents and taxpayers are mystified. How could Langley Board of Education agree to extend superintendent Cheryle Beaumont’s contract, at a time when the district has a massive deficit and major cuts to education services are inevitable?
I’m not sure that there is a simple answer. However, it is important to realize that the school district’s financial challenges have been made worse by continuing tension among board members, and between senior management and the Langley Teachers Association. Read more
Langley Times: Reading Recovery cut back due to budget
June 22, 2010
Natasha Jones – Langley Times
For many years, Reading Recovery has been successful in helping students who have difficulty learning to read and write. Aimed primarily at Grade 1 children, it is a highly effective program that runs during the summer.
This year, however, there will be fewer opportunities as the program is one of the casualties of the extreme measures the Langley board of education has been forced to take in order to balance its budget.
The program, previously offered at 29 schools, has been reduced by 25 per cent, and will be offered in 22 schools.
The district is reducing the number of speech pathologists from 9.4 positions to 8.4, and psychologists from seven full time-equivalents to six.
The number of counsellors who work at elementary schools will be reduced by almost half, to 6.4 FTEs. Read more
The Report Card: Debt-ridden Langley district still seeking new Secretary-treasurer
Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun
June 20, 2010
Langley school district is still looking for a secretary-treasurer to replace Wayne Braun, the Albertan who stayed on the job for only four months before high-tailing it back to his home province.
Dave Greenan, asked to serve as interim secretary-treasurer while the district looked for a permanent replacement, stayed a day past his scheduled retirement date of June 15 to help the board through a special budget meeting last week, the Langley Advance reports.
Communications manager Craig Spence is quoted as saying it’s not easy to find qualified candidates for such a senior position, but trustee Rod Ross suggested the real problem is the board of education. “A small number of board members do not trust senior staff,” he’s quoted as saying. Without that trust, “we will never see this district return to its greatness.”
The problem might also have something to do with the district’s $13-million deficit. Read more
Langley Advance: Call for public consultation nixed
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
June 18, 2010
A special meeting was needed so Langley School Board could approve its cost-cutting budget.
Trustees held first and second readings on the 2010/2011 budget bylaw, which includes $7 million in cuts, at Tuesday’s regular monthly meeting, and had expected to give it third reading that evening.
But Trustee Rob McFarlane threw a wrench in the works, refusing to vote in favour of a motion to hold three readings in one meeting.
Such votes must be unanimous.
“We had a budget open house without a budget,” he commented.
McFarlane said the public wasn’t given time to look over it, and he wanted people to have time to review it before the board gave final approval.
Instead, the board voted to hold a special meeting less than 24 hours later.
The budget passed Wednesday evening with no discussion on its contents. Read more
Langley Advance: New schools promised for 2012
June 14, 2010
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
Langley’s two MLAs are touting their government’s decision to build a new 15-classroom school in Willoughby, but few details are available from Langley School District.
That’s because the school announcement was made in Victoria, to the media on Monday, before it was relayed to the local school district. Read more
News 1130: Black ribbon campaign underway in Langley schools
June 10, 2010
Britt Carlsen
(NEWS1130) - The Langley Teachers Association and CUPE 1260 members say they will be in mourning after the Langley School Board budget meeting on June 15th. Budget cuts of $7 million dollars are being recommended and dozens of teachers have already received lay off notices. Read more
Susan Fonseca, with the LTA, says society has an obligation to educate our children and the cuts don’t reflect that responsibility. “We really see this as a serious loss of programs to students. People really are in a state of mourning when they see whole programs being cut and their school libraries being shut down.”
So what is being lost? “Half of our elementary councilors have been laid off, many of our teacher librarians, we have lost one special education psychologist, and one speech language pathologist. We are losing 30 per cent of our reading recovery programs, district coordinators, ESL teachers, alternate teachers, career teachers, and facing one school closure.”
Langley Times: School layoff picture starts to emerge
Natasha Jones – Langley Times
June 7, 2010
As the finishing touches are put on the 2010-11 Langley School District budget, figures are emerging that show the extent of layoffs among teachers and support staff.
Members of CUPE Local 1260 who work as special education assistants, secretaries, youth and childcare workers, and library and science technicians, are the hardest hit.
Union local president Donna Mason said that since last October, 100 members have been given layoff slips. At the end of April and in early May, 39 more received letters informing them that they would be laid off to make room for those among the 100 who have seniority.
That’s not the end of it. “We have been told that there may be another 39 (letters) coming this week,” Mason said on Wednesday. Read more
Langley Advance: Teachers – 61 in all – cut
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
June 4, 2010
“It’s way more than we were led to expect,” Langley Teachers’ Association president Susan Fonseca said of the job losses.
June 2 was when the 61 teachers were given official word that their jobs had been cut to save money.
“This is in addition to about 40 who are retiring,” she added. Read more
Langley Times: Education inequities
Frank Bucholtz – opinion
June 3, 2010
A glimpse of the situation in Langley schools this fall is starting to emerge, albeit very slowly and haltingly.
It appears that there will be about 100 fewer support staff in the community’s public schools, and about 40 fewer teachers.
While the school district’s overall enrolment is expected to decline again, as it has done for more than a decade, some of these layoffs can be attributed to the district’s horrific financial position. It is facing a deficit of more than $13 million, most of which is due to a series of accounting errors that were not detected by the board, senior management or outside auditors.
Something isn’t right when the education of children is seriously affected by accounting errors. Read more
News 1130: Langley schools facing budget crisis
May 26, 2010
Evan Kelly
LANGLEY (NEWS1130) – The Langley Teacher’s Association is angry at their MLAs. The district is facing a seven million dollar cut to its operating budget and Association Vice President Gail Chaddock-Costello says they’ve heard nothing from either MLA during the budget crisis. Read more
Chaddock-Costello says they’ve sent a letter to Rich Coleman and Mary Polak asking them to attend the school board’s budget open house on June 1st. “Our students here are in the worst situation in the province and we are wondering why we haven’t had any proactive work, comments or interaction from our MLA’s that reflect the constituents. They have been silent.’”
Langley Advance: Cuts have groups concerned about future
May 21, 2010
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance
Groups that will feel the impact of Langley School District cuts continue to make their case before the school trustees.
At Tuesdays regular monthly board meeting, student Ainsley de Steur said school counsellor positions should not be cut because there are many children in the district struggling with personal, family, school and other issues. Read more
Langley Times: Editorial – Learning in limbo
May 20, 2010
Students, teachers and support staff are no closer to finding out what impact the Langley School District’s massive deficit will have on them when they return to class in the fall.
Several people came to Tuesday night’s meeting of the Board of Education expecting to see a draft version of the district’s 2010-11 budget, including a rundown of anticipated staffing cuts by department.
What they learned instead was that the information is still being sorted out, and won’t be made public until the next board meeting on June 15. Read more
Langley Times: District chair wants halt to forensic audit calls
Natasha Jones – Langley Times
April 29, 2010
Langley board of education chairman Joan Bech had a stern warning for anyone calling for a forensic audit of the school district books.
The warning was ignored by several speakers, including a former president and the current vice-president of the Langley Teachers Association. Read more
Globe and Mail: Teachers to take calls for financial reform to BC Minister’s doorstep
April 23, 2010
Wendy Stueck – Globe and Mail
A dispute over funding at the Langley School District is expected to hit the Education Minister’s doorstep on Friday, when area teachers plan to take their calls for financial reform to Margaret MacDiarmid’s Vancouver office.
The Langley School District, comprising nearly 50 schools and with an annual budget of about $150-million, has amassed a deficit that now stands at about $14-million – even though districts are not allowed to run deficits under the B.C. School Act.
The financial woes have prompted the Langley Teachers’ Association to ask Ms. MacDiarmid to appoint a special adviser, as she did earlier this month for the Vancouver School District. The group intends to repeat that request Friday.
But in a telephone interview Thursday, Ms. MacDiarmid said Langley’s situation is “extraordinary” and that a special adviser is not required. Read more
Langley Times: Langley MLAs weigh in on school deficit
April 20, 2010
Natasha Jones – Langley Times
Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid has appointed a special advisor to examine the Vancouver board of education’s “financial performance,” and she should do the same for Langley, the president of the Langley Teachers Association said on Friday.
“We think that if anybody needs a special advisor it really should be Langley because in all the other districts the issues (deficits) are the result solely of provincial underfunding (and) downloading new costs to the district and cuts to grants,” Susan Fonseca said,
However, while Langley has suffered from these challenges, “more than half of our financial woes” are the result of mistakes made in the school board office’s finance department, Fonseca added.
Langley’s two MLAs think a special advisor to examine the school district’s affairs is premature. Read more
Langley Advance: Wanted: Advisor
April 16, 2010
It surpasses interesting that Minister of Education Margaret McDiarmid has appointed a special advisor to help with Vancouver School District’s financial affairs, and yet persists in leaving Langley education to its own devices.
She says there’s a difference: Vancouver knew from the start that it was short money, while Langley started last year thinking it had a $200,000 surplus before discovering a boatload of staff errors. Read article
Langley Times: Teachers call for forensic audit of district books
By Frank Bucholtz – Langley Times
Teachers who turned out to a Langley Teachers’ Association meeting Monday want to see a forensic audit of the district’s spending from 2005-06 to 2009-2010.
A series of motions calling for the audit passed by a margin of 197 to 0, with one abstention, at the meeting which was held at Langley Secondary School. The motions also call for sufficient funding to be provided for programs and services, until the audit is complete. Read article
Here’s an interesting story on Langley’s massive accumulated deficit, which only came to light this year. Auditors are now blaming a rush to embrace school-based management, an ideological cornerstone of the reforms pushed after 2001 by former Deputy Emery Dosdall, who was hand-picked by Premier Gordon Campbell to bring a more businesslike approach to running the public education system.
Langley Times: Decentralization played role in school district overruns
April 8, 2010
By Natasha Jones – Langley Times
Almost three decades ago, the Langley School District voted to implement decentralization, a system which allows principals and teaching staff to call the financial shots in their schools.
A senior administrator at the time called school-based budgeting “a very significant development in education” because it shifted power to individual schools from the school board office.
Langley became the first district in the province to adopt the practice.
Now, 27 years later, after auditors and staff unravelled the origins of finance department miscalculations which led to massive overspending, the practice is about to be reversed, at least in part. Read article
Teachers’ union offers its own deficit elimination plan
April 6, 2010
Natasha Jones | Langley Times
More than six months after the Langley School District submitted a Debt Elimination Plan to the Ministry of Education, it has still not received approval from the minister, Margaret MacDiarmid.
The plan spells out how the district will save the more than $8 million which the district overspent as a result of finance department miscalculations. However, the school district has not waited for a response, having carried out a number of cost-saving measures since October.
The Langley Teachers Association has now drafted its own proposal, calling it the ‘Minimal Impact Debt Elimination Plan.’ Read article
[The news report below cites a BC Education Ministry report that claims the district's schools are over-staffed. But official provincial and national stats shows that, in fact, Langley's student-educator ratio is leaner than the Canadian average, its average elementary class sizes in 2009 were above the BC average, and 560 of 2,459 classes in the district exceeded provincial class size and composition limits. - DS]
Deficit plan must resolve staff overload
Friday, March 26, 2010
Heather Colpitts | Langley Advance
Langley School District has about 50 extra support staff, compared to other, similar school districts, so employees are included in a new package of proposed budget cuts worth more than $6 million.
The district’s deficit elimination plan has yet to receive the go-ahead by the Ministry of Education, which has pointed out one of the stumbling blocks: too many staffers.
“On their own, ministry staff prepared a staffing analysis,” explained Langley schools superintendent Cheryle Beaumont. Read article
School deficit keeps growing
Langley School Board has an additional $5.31 million shortfall to deal with.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Heather Colpitts | Langley Advance
$8.2 million deficit plus $5.31 million projected additional deficit equals $13.5 million… and a whole lot of cuts needed for Langley School District.Read article
Current financial figures – showing a rapidly expanding shortage – were released at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
School deficit balloons once again
Board of education chair Joan Bech says the school district will continue to look for ways to cut costs after it was revealed its deficit has grown to $13.5 million.
February 25, 2010
By Monique Tamminga | Langley Times
Just when it looked like things couldn’t get worse for the Langley School District — they did.Read article
At Tuesday’s board of education meeting, it was learned that the district’s deficit has ballooned from an already devastating $8.2 million to $13.5 million shortfall for the 2009-2010 budget.
