The upcoming 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games have sapped so much of the provincial budget, school boards are being left out in the cold, says Coast Mountains board chairman Barry Pankhurst.

“The provincial government is cutting everybody out, except the Olympics,” he told the Sentinel last week, adding he could not understand how “they can fund these trips to Greece to see flames being lit” even as school board budgets are taking “a severe kicking.”

We’re not going to benefit from that,” Pankhurst added.

At this month’s board meeting trustees declined three financial requests, two coming from the Child Development Centre (CDC) board.

“We have sympathy for the CDC,” said Pankhurst, “We just don’t have the money.”

One request from the CDC board involved school-to-school transportation as part of programming, the other waiving of rental fees.

Currently, the CDC board runs kindercare and out of school care at Nechako and Kildala Elementaries, as well as three-to-five-year old and infant toddler care at Kitimat City High School.

The current need involves transporting four school-aged children between Roy Wilcox Elementary to Nechako Elementary.

A request to alter the school bus schedules to allow these students to use them was made to the school board despite current policy that does not allow school bus services to transport these children.

The CDC board therefore requested the school board review their current policy.

“The Child Development Centre Board of Directors and administration have met with a group of parents on several occasions desperately trying to problem solve,” said CDC board director Ingrid Ladouceur in a presentation at the October 14 board meeting. “We are still without a solution at this time.”

“The request is dead for the moment,” said Pankhurst. “It’s a good idea and I am fully supportive of it, but it’s going to take a while to go through it.”

While conceding it was not a major change, Pankhurst explained, “because of the policies in place and the governance associated, it’s going to be at least two or three months before the issue comes back to the board.”

The CDC is a valuable service in the community, he added. “The parents are trying to do something positive.”

The Child Development Centre board had anticipated that, if accepted, use of the transportation service might increase once parents became aware of after school care and the availability of transportation.

Ladouceur’s request the school board waive the current rent charged to the Child Development Centre’s school programs was also denied.

“We have discovered that some school districts approve non-profit agencies to operate daycare or preschool in school facilities in community schools with no rental costs,” she told the board.

“All Child Development services are operated on a non-profit basis and the monies we need to charge cover operating costs only.”

The school board also declined a $3,000 request from BC School Sports for financial assistance.

BC School Sports is the provincial association that oversees all high school sports. As a cost saving measure, the province decided to eliminate the association’s annual $130,000 operating grant this year.

The group has asked school districts to provide one-time financial support to allow the organization to continue its work while it restructures.

Pankhurst said it is obvious that BC School Sports is short on cash but pointed out that the money the Coast Mountains was asked to chip in would not have been put back into local programs.

“They’re trying to get school boards to cover what they’ve lost. We all want to give the money, but the simple fact is, we don’t have it.”