Dear Editor:
Re: TEAM calls for transparency, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 26.
The article, "TEAM calls for transparency" was intriguing given school board chair Mr. Hayes' response to Ms. Bitzer's call for more transparency in the reporting of district expenses and salaries.
Mr. Hayes vouched for his board's integrity on reporting, in a timely manner, all information to the Minister of Education, and he quickly dismissed any accusations that the board was "hiding stuff." I don't think Ms. Bitzer was accusing anyone of hiding anything. Her point, a valid one, was that information was not readily available to all the taxpayers of the district.
Lucky for us there was a website included at the end of the article that would allow concerned citizens the opportunity to crack open the books and have a look, and if anyone was really keen they could dig up a school budget from another obscure website that wasn't advertised.
Ms. Bitzer's suggestion for a monthly post on board of education expenditures and annual salaries for all employees is a sensible one given the economic climate and the state of attrition present in our school system.
Transparency, for Mr. Hayes, means status quo filings to the provincial government, doing only what is required, including limited outreach to the community that elected him to communicate the business at hand.
These are our children, and we are very concerned about how moneys are allocated to educate them. In this age of information, I would ask why isn't there a free flow of communication with regards to expenditures, and why do we have to take it on faith that some auditor says the annual financial statements pass the muster? Maybe, if parents were more engaged, they might even solicit a third-party opinion that would offer some objectivity to the financial statements rather than relying on political hacks telling us not to bother because they've done what's been asked of them, and absolutely no more.
Thank you, Bonda Bitzer, for envisioning a more robust and accountable school
Shannon Campbell, Burnaby
