Bill for school maintenance must be paid

A recent story in an online magazine quoted an unnamed Ministry of Education source as estimating that for provincial school districts, the “deferred maintenance” bill could be as high as $5 billion.

That is possibly overstated but if the bill for deferred maintenance is anything approaching $5 billion, how can this have happened?

Unravelling the Gordian knot that is an annual school-district budget takes years off a school-district secretary-treasurer’s life, and accelerates retirement for superintendents who try to explain budget mysteries to newly elected trustees.

In simple terms, no matter what the actual “deferred maintenance” number is, it seems that B.C. school districts are in serious need of a mindboggling amount of building-maintenance expenditure that has been deferred in favour of other budget priorities.

It helps to consider that for the 59 school districts (plus the Francophone Education Authority), about 91 per cent of each district’s operating budget (and that’s where daily maintenance comes from) goes to salaries and benefits of both teaching and nonteaching employees. These are the people who, in one way or another, run the schools and enable the provision of instruction.

That leaves only about nine per cent for supplies, services and equipment.

People knowledgeable about school-district maintenance estimate that 30 per cent would be closer to satisfying the need.

As part of that operating budget, school districts also receive what is called the annual facility grant or the “facilities shareable capital allowance.”

The amount of a school district’s additional annual facility grant is calculated by the Ministry of Education using a formula based on student enrolment and average age of facilities, with an adjustment made for unique geographic factors.

In recognition of the need for constant routine maintenance of schools, especially regarding roofs that have an estimated life of 35 years, this annual facility grant is provided as a supplementary funding source for projects “regularly required to extend the life of existing facilities,” which are, after all, publicly owned assets.

It is shareable in that other maintenance costs, not covered by the grant, must and do come from the general operating budget.

As anyone who owns a home understands, districts face certain nonnegotiable costs, including utilities, heating and light.

Other significant claims on this shareable capital grant as part of the operating budget can include electrical-system upgrades, loss prevention, disabled access, health and safety, and site-servicing.

Even a single outbreak of weekend vandalism with multiple broken windows and property damage can make an unanticipated hole in this part of the operating budget.

So, when the supplementary shareable capital money from the grant runs out, building maintenance becomes, for trustees and administrators, part of an operating-budget balancing act.

And here is where “deferred maintenance” becomes a budget line and part of the budget decision process.

Too often, through necessity, some basic building maintenance beyond daily cleaning falls off the list. Another year passes and routine maintenance — such as painting, plumbing, refinishing walls and upgrading window frames, signs, landscaping and upgrading or replacing maintenance equipment — takes its place in line at budget time behind the more strident face-to-face advocacy of other groups making demands on the operating budget.

When there are the other maintenance necessities such as disabled access and asbestos abatement, desirable maintenance items such as improvements to school facilities related to the provision of educational programming and technology infrastructure upgrades sometimes don’t even make it onto the to-do list. Nonstructural upgrades such as upgrading or replacement of playground facilities and fields remain lost and lonely on the superintendent of operations’ wish list.

The thing is that for anybody not directly connected to school-building maintenance it is difficult to envisage the wear and tear inflicted unintentionally on the 1,600 or so public school buildings that accommodate half a million kids for 190 days every year.

We are not talking about deliberate damage here, just ordinary wear and tear — floors that are overrun by hundreds of muddy boots each winter, walls that are brushed by hundreds of school bags and community-use gym floors that are the bane of the school custodian’s existence.

B.C.’s winter weather also takes a toll on building exteriors, pathways, playgrounds and playing fields.

To an incoming government and a new minister, this potentially massive deferred-maintenance bill must feel like that stunning credit card bill run up in your name by a recently departed spouse.

The problem is, pay it now or pay it later, but it must, eventually, be paid.