The Vancouver School Board says hundreds of teachers and other employees could be laid off this year if it doesn't receive a major funding increase from the provincial government.
Board chair Patti Bacchus told ctvbc.ca Tuesday morning that the board is forecasting a budget shortfall between $17.5 and $36.3 million for 2010-2011 due to a number of new costs incurred this year.
"We're looking at a situation that is very bleak in terms of being able to support students and the diversity of students we have in Vancouver," Bacchus said. "We've had $47-million in cuts since 2002, we're already tightly staffed."
Roughly 800 teachers, all with less than four or five years teaching experience, received letters from the school board on Tuesday requesting they update their teaching qualifications -- a contractual prerequisite to any potential layoffs.
"It's a very wide net, about 20 per cent of our teaching force, and far, far more than would be considered for layoff," Bacchus said.
Actual layoff notices, should they be required, would not be distributed until May.
The layoffs could be avoided by an increase in funding from the province, Bacchus said, but the board won't receive its budget allocation until March 15.
"I certainly, as board chair, expect the provincial government should be funding the new costs, as they come from a provincial level," Bacchus said. "But we do have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario."
The new costs include increases to teacher salaries, pension plans and MSP premiums, as well as a new requirement for schools to report carbon emissions and pay carbon offsets.
But a Ministry of Education spokesman, who asked not to be named, said the VSB budget has increased every year of the last decade, as has per-pupil funding.
Enrollment has also declined, the spokesman said, from 58,145 in the 2000-2001 school year to 55,224 in 2009-2010.
Bacchus said the annual budget increases have still failed to cover the costs downloaded from the province each year.
"We've made reductions every year since 2001 in programs and staffing, support, teacher resources and supplies," she said.
