The Vancouver School Board has laid off eight staff members, including its communications manager, as it faces yet another multi-million-dollar budget shortfall for the coming school year.
Board Chairwoman Patti Bacchus confirmed that the staff members were laid off in a tweet Wednesday night.
The VSB's communications manager David Weir told CTV News that he was one of the people who have lost their jobs.
The board is projecting an $11.86-million budget shortfall for the 2011-2012 school year. In a brief on the budget, the VSB blames underfunding by the education ministry.
"The reason for chronic underfunding is clear: a per-student funding formula introduced in 2002/2003 that does not fund cost increases regularly faced by districts, nor fixed costs that remain constant with small changes in enrolment," the board says.
Bacchus has been locked in a war of words with the education ministry for a year now, since then-education minister Margaret MacDiarmid railed against "unacceptable" proposed cuts and assigned the province's comptroller general to review the school board's books.
The board is holding a budget input and information meeting Thursday at 7 p.m. in its West Broadway offices.
