The
2012-2013 budget announcement has caused Kevin Falcon, B.C.’s Minister of Finance,
to receive a severe finger-wagging from the heads of post-secondary institutions
throughout B.C. Falcon recently revealed that, as part of the budget, funding for
all post-secondary institutions across the board would decrease by $70 million
in the next three years.
“The
province will work with universities, colleges, and other institutions to help
ensure that front-line programs are not affected,” he said in his budget announcement.
“And we believe a one per cent cost reduction is very achievable.” Falcon said
he expects institutions to cut administrative costs by one per cent by
2014-2015, especially by working together in the areas of “travel,
administration and executive overhead.”
However,
this announcement has provoked responses from a variety of groups concerned about
the reduction. Perhaps most notably, the presidents of all the province’s
public postsecondary institutions have collectively written to the Minister of Advanced
Education, Naomi Yamamoto, to express their displeasure with the budget
announcement.
“All
the college and university presidents in British Columbia were disheartened to
hear the news about the upcoming budget cuts in 2013/14 and 2014/15,” says
Capilano University president Kris Bulcroft. “The pending reductions in our
operating budgets are in addition to five years of unfunded inflationary costs
to all colleges and universities in B.C., so the cuts will impose a real strain
on our budgets.”
“It
is critical for Government to understand that the $70 million reduction to
institutional grants over the last two years of the fiscal plan, combined with
five years of unfunded inflationary pressures, creates a strain on the
operations of post-secondary institutions,” the letter states. It also mentions
the pressure created by the government’s “net-zero” stipulation, in that any increases
in compensation for staff must be paid for by decreases in other areas.
Collective bargaining typically includes an increase in compensation every few
years.
The
government’s statement on the cuts assures that service levels would not be
affected, a claim the administrators clearly disagree with, saying that to
expect the reductions would have no effect on service levels is “unrealistic”. The
letter also points out that the post-secondary sector is the only one that has
received an absolute budget decrease in the proposed budget, “with the
inference that other sectors, such as health, have taken action [in reducing
costs] where we have not.”
However,
the presidents point out that their institutions can show many different
expenditure management initiatives that have been implemented over the last few
years.
Although
the precise impact the budget cuts will have on these institutions will not be
seen until next year, Bulcroft assures students that any changes will occur
with as little disruption to students as possible.
“I
know that students are concerned that the result of these cuts will be service
cuts in the form of program reductions or eliminations, or other services that
students have come to depend on in order to be successful here at Capilano. At
this time, no decisions have been made about how we will deal with provincial
reductions in our operating grants, and I know of no other college or
university that has come forward with a statement about how they intend to deal
with these reductions,” she says.
She
adds that decisions about what areas will be impacted will involve a “process
that brings our stakeholders (including students and the external community)
into dialogue about how to work together to insure that Capilano is meeting the
needs of our students, despite these difficult fiscal constraints.”
//Gurpreet Kambo, news editor
//Photograph by Jason Jeon
//Gurpreet Kambo, news editor
//Photograph by Jason Jeon
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