The Langley Teachers Association is calling on the Langley board of education to fully disclose the findings of an independent accounting firm probing errors that led to the $4.8 million deficit in the 2008-09 school budget.

In its preliminary report, the international accounting firm Deloitte said that the deficit resulted from “incorrect and incomplete calculations of expected expenditures, and accounting errors in calculations and reconciliations.”

The information was announced by board chairman Joan Bech on June 16, the board’s final meeting of the school year.

LTA president Susan Fonseca said that at the union’s June 23 meeting, the executive called on the board to release to the public all the findings of Deloitte’s report.

The report, expected in July or August, will not only give details of the miscalculations but show how they occurred and spell out what internal controls need to be implemented to avoid similar mistakes being repeated.

“We are calling for full transparency,” Fonseca said.

“Teachers are just stunned by this level of financial mismanagement by the district.

“We know there is provincial underfunding but the majority of this deficit is because of financial mismanagement,” Fonseca added.

Unlike the other unions representing school district employees, the LTA does not yet know if the deficit will result in teachers losing their jobs. She noted that jobs are still being posted, and will continue to September.

“I’ve been asking for those numbers but have not got concrete answers back,” Fonseca said. “But I do know that there will be less work for school counsellors . . . and teacher librarians have been cut.”

The school district anticipates enrolment will drop by 48 students in September, and hopes that layoffs will be avoided through normal attrition, such as retirement or leaves of absence.

Forty-three teachers retired at the end of June, and the LTA does not like the district viewing these or other retirements as opportunities to not replace personnel, Fonseca said.

“The LTA doesn’t see this as an opportunity that benefits children,” she said, adding that the district appears to view opportunity “as a euphemism for cutting services to children and classrooms.”