Mike Lombardi says he’s more hopeful now than before.

Previously, the Vancouver school board chair said he will not vote for a budget that will hurt kids even if this means getting fired by the province.

That’s precisely what he and his three Vision Vancouver colleagues and Green trustee Janet Fraser did on April 28.

They voted against the proposed $447 million operating budget for school year 2016-2017 because they cannot support the $24 million cuts that have to be made to come up with this budget.

On May 3, Lombardi and Fraser met with Education Minister Mike Bernier, and this is why Lombardi is now feeling more hopeful.

“We both agreed in our meeting that we need to focus on kids and public education,” Lombardi related in a phone interview with the Straight the following day.

According to the Vancouver school board chair, they also agreed to have senior executives of the district and education ministry to talk and work out recommendations to break the budget impasse.

“The fact that the minister would sit down with us, and say he would like to have his executives explore some options and ideas, I think that’s a very positive sign,” Lombardi said.

Will the province give more money?

"That’s one of the options,” Lombardi said. “He [Bernier] said there’s a variety of options.”

Technically, the board has to submit a balanced budget required under legislation by June 30.

However, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done even before that day to prepare for the next school year that starts in September.

Lombardi is hoping that senior district and ministry staff can bring ideas for Bernier to consider this week.

Vancouver school board trustees are meeting on Monday (May 9), with Lombardi’s expectations that by that time, Bernier would have some proposals to the district.

Fraser Ballantyne, who was one of the four Non-Partisan Association trustees who voted for the budget last month, doubts whether the province is going to bend.

“I don’t think that the government will come forward to help our problem of $24 million shortfall,” Ballantyne told the Straight by phone. “That’s our problem that we have to fix. So no matter what, there’s going to be $24 million cutbacks in Vancouver and possibly more.”

The former school administrator said that budget is just a “side circus”.

“The education dollars going into empty schools has been the whole story all along,” Ballantyne said.

Education minister Bernier earlier said that Vancouver spends $37 million a year to maintain empty school spaces.

“The real story is all around the closure of schools,” Ballantyne said.

The district is consulting the public about a proposed long-range facilities plan that may see the closure of up to 13 schools over the next 15 years.

Ballantyne blamed Vision and Green trustees for the “pandemonium” they have caused.

“This brinkmanship kind of politics is based on their ideology,” Ballantyne said. “It’s going to backfire if they don’t do something.”  

A public rally will be held this afternoon to show support for the Vancouver school board. The demonstration will happen on the steps of the Vancouver school board building at 4:30 p.m.