Follow the money: Treasurer Sheldon Lee’s Numbers

Dan Vie

Acting Treasurer Sheldon Lee presented a budget summary at the last Board meeting on Feb. 23rd. But surprise – he’s doing it again at each of the four 4-day week consults!  (Mr. Lee lives in Abbotsford, psychiatrist and is being shared P/T with Gold River.)

 Here’s a great chance to challenge Mr. Lee on his assumptions in defense of the status quo.  Just because our top admin pay scale is at the same level of Districts around BC does not make it normal or defensible.
Wednesday, March 9               Cumberland    6:30 to 8 pm
Thursday, March 10                 Lake Trail         6:30 to 8 pm
Wednesday, March 16             Highland          6:30 to 8 pm
Thursday, March 17                 Isfeld                6:30 to 8 pm

Sheldon-Lee-budget-REFORMAT

His full PDF (see http://www.sd71.bc.ca/pdfs/district_news/363.pdf) is well worthy of analysis: The $$ SUMMARY reformatted above is on p. 32.  In short, Mr. Lee defended our admin expenses as average in B.C. and low compared to others – with our average admin salary in the $100K range. (Again, Elwood’s salary this year was at least $155K, plus another $25K in benefits, and severance unknown.) 

Note this graphic from page 25: the high/low variable is about $2000.

2014_15-average-admin-salary

Mr. Lee broke down rising salaries and benefit costs inc. WCB, EI, CPP, MSP etc. and declining enrolments, where we’re still losing c. 150 students/year @ $7,000/head, but which will level out in a few years. 27 of BC’s 60 school districts are under Funding Protection – however, FP is only guaranteed for 2015-16, and Ministry may choose to kill it off or reduce it gradually. Short answer: our annual shortfall is likely to continue at similar levels. Note: even Trustee Coleman commented that the Ministry’s funding formula based on head-counts is wrong.