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If York County Board of Education members were really aware of the budget situation necessities as they finalized the year’s spending and tax levy last week, their debate didn’t seem to show such an awareness. The real point which should have been debated, and which the tax paying electorate should be con- cerned about, was whether or not the reserve fund should be reduced at all, let alone by one-half to $1.3 million. What the trustees should have been worrying about was the over- all cash position of the corporation. Redistribution If another lesson in the need for speedy, early action on electoral redistribution was required, then this region got it last week. The real concern is whether or not the board during the coming year will be relying unduly upon borrowed money to operate. If they are, they will have just set a perpetual process in motion where interest charges will con- tinually feed the fires of increased taxes. "$th that appears to have been exactly what has been dqne. Complications at the provin- cial level have made it almost certain ward redistribution in Markham won’t come about in time for the December local government elections. So they failed the real test of fiscal responsibility. This means residents of south Thornhill will remain more than one-half disenfranchised for at least another two years, The existence of an intolerable Situation for a loyear period is assured. Perhaps it will go on even longer. Budget It’s all even more insulting when it’s realized all York region voters, including those same south Thomhill citizens, are in just about the same position when it comes to the weight of their votes in federal elections. The situation is but little better at the provincial level. Despite all the many and smart arguments raised by various vested interests to the contrary, York County Board of Education Trustee John Stephens in his article in the March 31 issue of The Liberal, says the preliminary 1976 budget for the board is $9,600,000 more than last year. The entire thrust of his article was an attempt to shift the blame for this very onerous tax burden onto ‘the bureaucrats' in general and the director of education in particular. School bureaucrats blameless When the salary agreement with the secondary school teachers was ratified last June, I wrote publicly on this matter. I criticized the irresponsibility of the salary committee for negotiating on their own and in refusing to seek the advice of administrative staff or of This is unfair criticisrfi and clearly isn’t in accord with the facts. Southern Thornhill gets robbed again School board in never land But I knew something was going to have to be done the moment I walked into last week‘s meeting and found several members. who had never so much as nodded at me before, coming up and telling me they enjoyed my column last week. “If you write about the school board again this week} I’ll scream." a friend of mine said to me the other day in one of those confidential little asides that can be heard across six intersections at the height of rush hour. So if you’re wondering where that Guinness-bookâ€"of-records blast that levelled the last, lingering ridge of snow in your driveway, came from, wonder no longer. Mind you, I hadn't planned to write about the board again, I had been hoping to come up with a serious subject. PUBLISHER J.G.VAN KAMPEN El The Liberal is published every Wednesday by Metrospan ( Limited - North Division. which also publishes The Banner The_Woodbriage Vaughan News, and The Bolton Enterprise PAGE A4 WEDNE By John Honsberger Viewpoint from the regional desk BYJIM IRVING all): Iihtral I010] Yonge Street. Richmond Hill, LAC 4Y6 On'ario The trustees spent themselves into an impossible corner. A hefty 16 per cent tax increase couldnft save them. That tax increase surely was a desperate measure for an election year. What would it have been if an election hadn‘t loomed in December? The trustees have entered a never, never land. If the school board was operating with fair prudence in recent years. and hopefully it was, then certainly it has now moved a considerable distance in the direction of im- prudence. In a year of unusual inflationary budget expansion when it would be financially prudent to increase cash reserves, the board has thrown into the operating pot all its 1975 surplus and half its reserves. Remember too, that the board spends as big a share of the property tax dollar as all other local government bodies put together. the foundation of fair and good government is equality of voting power for all citizens. It is to the advantage of all, not just those whose voting power is weak as in south Thornhill, to have it assured there is equality of representation in government assemblies. ‘ Anything else must necessarily cause the whole community to suffer destructive imbalances of one kind or another. It isn’t enough, any more, for electedbodies to wait until elec- toral representation has become unbalanced before taking action. outside professionals To achieve equality and assure the health of community and nation, it is necessary to anticipate population changes and to carry out electoral redistribution a little ahead of the fact, not dismally late as at present. No private employer with a fraction of the amount of money at issue would negotiate in such a casual manner. Unseemly haste ‘I also criticized the board for their unseemly haste in ratifying the set- tlement when the administrative staff saw the proposed settlement for only a few hours beforehand and had no time to cost it. This is a little something to remember when the candidates come out soliciting support in future elections, be they local, provincial or federal. The director and secretary treasurer of‘the board saw it only half an hour before it was ratified. The school board ‘bought a pig in a poke‘ and has nobody but ‘itself to blame. It isn’t entirely irrelevant that all of this occurred in the few months following the December 1974 school board election when an organized teacher pressure group managed to Taxpayers should beware EDITOR HAROLD BLAINE Metrospan Community Newspapers The Banner in Aurora Newmarkev, Then when the chief subject of the column, Joy Horton, later expressed puzzlement, concern and what appeared to be a certain amount of pain over what I had written, I was really taken aback. Vengeance error For I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for Mrs. Horton and, if I managed to portray her as the villain of the piece. as she seemed to feel I had, then I had erred with a vengeance. Now what have I done, I thought to myself. In writing what I did, and if you didn‘t read it, I don‘t plan to go back and review it in detail, I merely was hoping to bring to an end â€" at least, so far as any more comment went at this point â€" to a subject which I felt the board had had every chance to battle to a finish sometime before. {j}. Enough, school board, enough! A WéDNESDAY, APRIL 7. W76 That, of course, was the battle by Dear editor: A few sulphurous bubbles keep surfacing from the murky depths of York region‘s trackless educational swamp, sink, or Watergate: One with the odor of very ancient eggs is the recent decision that tape recordings of all York County Board of Education meetings are to be destroyed after only six months. .Well, it is almost six months since the fateful evening of Oct. 14. And, it was announced on March 22, that by some mysterious slip‘ sleight of hand â€" or worse â€" the tape recorder just wasn’t in operation at that crucial time. Consider: on that obviously most important occasion they forgot to put the tape recorder on. And now. after six months, any tape may be destroyed anyway, making everything ‘legal’. According to a statement in a letter of Nov. 17 last, sent by Director Chapman to the AIB (made public for the first time on March 22), executive salary agreements were ratified. The per- tinent part of the letter reads thus: elect several trustees who appeared to be‘more concerned with appeasing the teachers than with considering what the community could afford. Overlooks fact In his criticism of the administrative Why erase school board tapes? Why this indecent haste, this sudden yen for a rapidly cleaned slate? “A special salary review committee of our board had agreed to a wage settlement with the employees who in turn had accepted the settlement; however, the full Board did not ratify the agreements until Oct. 14”. The review committee did not agree, never have agreed, therefore could not have offered any agreed-on package; and did not, in any case, have the power Mrs. Horton and others to try and undo what had more or less already been done. And that was to approve a 16 to 19.8 per cent increase in wages to the administrative staff, in what they now claimed was the day after the Oct. 13 deadline set by Pierre Trudeau and the rest of that all-star sq_uad up in Ottawa: If staff “morale was low,“ as argued by some, then they might have 'settled the matter right then and there by including a chit in their pay packets entitling them to stop by the corner ale house on the way home for a couple of pints. ‘It waé my not-so-humble opinion they had had their chance to resolve the situation at the time. But, of course. money is the universal tranquilizer, anymore, and if a group is suffering “low morale," it can only mean one The fact the kids are raising both cain and pot in equal proportions throughout the house, or the spouse doesn't even bother to cover his or her mouth now while yawning through your discourse on the many problems at work, has nothing to do with it. thing: not enough money or authority to reach a settlement, so there was nothing to ratify. No, to a sympathetic school board with lots of money to throw around just as aspirin is antidote for a headache. more money is the cure- all for low morale.' There was subsequent concern by Mrs. Horton and others that it wasn‘t all done according to the rules. even though a couple of af- fidavits were subsequently turned That the government provided some direction by setting a 10 per cent maximum. doesn't seem to matter; if staff wants 16 to 19 per cent. a way will be found. Though Trustee Quirk â€" a member of the committee â€" favors fat executive salaries, I must salute her honesty; for again. as recently as March 22, she Chapman‘s statement_to the AIB_? staff, Trustee Stephens overlooks the fact that last June the trustees ap- proved salary agreements they didn’t take time to adequately cost. These salary agreements later were found to have added almost $9,600,000 to the 1976 costs. Oneâ€"half of this amount is attributable to the secondary teacher salary agreement. It is something of a miracle the ad- ministrative staff was finally able to come up with a budget just $9,600,000 higher than last year. This is almost exactly the amount by which teacher salaries increased. System squeezed It is certainly an indication of how the rest of the school system must have been squeezed. Trustee Stephens ends his article by saying the ‘local ratepayer gets zonked again’ What, then, is one to make of Director Sid Britton . . .recorder slipped up School board must lower commitments Dear editor It is with great disappointment that I must report the board, by one vote agreed to a $68 million budget rather than $67 million or less. All numbers in this letter are of course still rough. This represents an increase in the local requisition of $8,360,000, which to a homeowner assessed at $30,000 means an increase of about 27 per cent or $123. The papers reported 1-6.6 per cent and $73 for this year. How can $73 be $123? You‘re right, it can‘t. It‘s a tricky point that involves buying your schooling on time. Briefly. the difference of 11 per cent or $50 goes onto next year‘s tax increase. We didn't cut the'programs and while the program stays. the cost stays. Today we Set the programs and start hiring staff not only for September- October this year but for the whole school year to August 1977. Use of the surplus and reserve per- mits us to spread the cost to you over two or three years but the increase doesn‘t go away, the surplus does. Personally I believe government debt will be the death of us. What would happen to a family if they continued to budget beyond their means? Fertunately. we have collected more than we needed for years so have a reserve of your funds on hand. But I still believe that when the handwriting is on the wall for all extra layers of government such as the regional type,‘we simply have to cut the layers to live within our means. In the Aurora and Newmarket weekly of March 17, Trustee Margarate Coburn writes a column on education. It is all about money. Your money. And how much of it, and to which members of Education‘s empire â€"â€" its rightful owners â€" ‘it should be distributed. loudly and persistently bewailed the fact the committee consisted of only four, and resulted in a stalemate, whereas at the time of its appointment she had moved f0; five â€" with no possible stalemate. ' One doeslnot have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce, then, that at no time did she consider an operative and valid agreement had been reached â€" otherwise, why her regrets? Which leaves only one member of the com- mittee, Chairman Raniowski, of that opinion. She thinks that if society'is to mean anything at all. salaries must keep going up. No limits. A Cadillac in every drive. a drink in each hand, cigars in each cheek, and ice-cream cones between your toes. Sort of, Overly generous What really ‘zonked‘ the ratepayer wasn’t the budget of March 29, but the overly generous salary settlements of June 1975. But I disagree with, and rej’ect, his premise that the staff was responsible for the result. The trustees refused to permit the staff to participate in the negotiations which led to the settlement, The trustees must now accept the responsibility for theAinc-reased costs If is both vagainst the facts and un- worthy of them, to suggest otherwise. In, saying it was Superintendents, who money-wise are just now dragging along behind high school principais, must receive an I completely agree with his con- clusion. ‘Misera contribuens plebs!!. (John Honsberger of 60 Elgin SL. Thornhill. is a former member of the York County Board of Education. â€" Editor) Nou'l. in it wasn’t legitimate, the signers of those affidavits could be charged with perjury. _ That‘s even more serious than the reporter on the local paper turning in misspelled names for the bowling column. ~ So, in this case, I, anyway, felt it was time to drop the matter for the nonce. ‘ Maybe it was laziness on my part -â€" I don't claim to be a great in- vestigative reporter; I hardly have time as it is to get to all the meetings I‘m required to attend. what with running around trying to gather information for community service supplements, et al â€"- so I offer my opinion at the moment on a matter I feel some concern for. Sounded ruthless This time. I may have come out sounding as if I felt Mrs. Horton was Back to your tax bill. If inflation next Opinion ‘ Letters I And that's all I plan to say about it. both because I feel I‘ve made what little case I intended to. and also because the editor told me I'm being much too long winded and to cut future columns off at 21"; takes. _ Tllat was probably overly dramatic on my part, but was stated solely as a feeling of the QOent. And that's exactly the point I’ve reached now. year is 10 per cent then add another $45 to next year and the whole picture is: This year â€" 16 per cent or $73. Next year â€" 21 per cent or $95 for a total increase set this week of $168 for the house assessed at $30,000. I just thought she was wrong in prolonging the issue â€" the time to act had come and gone â€" and threw in a little quote from the bard about the excesses of ambition, thinking that might help to give it some perspective. It in no way was' meant to detract from my high opinion of Mrs. Horton. completely wrong in everything she did, attributing a ruthlessness to her motives that she far from deserved. Regional systems are complex and expensive and I believe a return to more basic classroom education will not only be less expensive. but. in fact. may well produce a higher level of academic achievement. More responsibility returned to the schools might alleviate the nearly 200 central people who have appeared since 1969, while the number of people in the schools doing the same job has not decreased. - In the six years since regional government came to York, the teacher‘s salaries have increased about the same amount as the cost of living â€".- about 57 per cent. V Other costs have increased from $30 million to nearly $70 million â€" a much higher rate â€" 127 per cent. This means costs other than teacher‘s salaries have risen far more than the inflation rate. Trustees have already submitted suggestions for many savings. We must start to lower our long range commitments now and to build. for the short term. a surplus for 1976 by inâ€" troducing program cuts. I will work to this end. extra shot of your money â€" and this year. no fooling â€" to re-establish their rightful place in the education strata, the pecking order. ’ Coburn refers to a study conducted for the Simcoe Board by a consulting firm, who found the director’s salary was 30 per cent below that of com- parable positions in business and in- dustry. ' And the director's salary? She says he gets $2,000 less than the Simcoe County Board guy (I doubt it; I think she is comparing his last year's salary with the Simcoe starveling's this year's pittance). The difference is that business is for real. not for education's tiddly-winks; and it has no mattress of public money to fall back on when the going is tough. It is crucial. before they get the dread stomach bloat of starvation. I So that is what education, and our civilization, is all about: envy. greed. rat-racing around? ‘No member shall criticize 'any decision except for the purpose of moving in accordance with recon- sideration of the decision . . .' However. accepting these noble conceptions of life and its meaning, one might then ask: If Chapman is ‘worth' $47.765 per annum, how come Premier Bill Davis gets only $52,000? And what. gentle reader. are you worth? Why, nothing much. both during â€" and especially after â€" they have finished with you. On this day I write, April 1, she is due to make a motion at a meeting of the board which includes the following formidable battle-line of English: How d'yer like that cord round the windpipe of democracy? Obviously only a very educated person could write this modern edition of Magna Carta. It might be noted Margaret Coburn is the wife of a school teacher. And that his boss is Director Chapman. Trustee Coburn was elected to represent something quite different from that. Certainly she would make an ex- cellent spokeswoman for a trade union of education brass. East Gwillimbury trustee. York County Board of Education RR 4. Stouffville, Ont. (MRS. ( JOY HORTON SID BRITTON. 84 Hillview Rd. Aurora, Ont.