I read with interest the article in your Oct. 1 issue entitled School district seeks public input.
Here is mine.
The article stated that the Vernon School District got an unexpected fine from WorkSafeBC of $620,000.
I can understand such a fine levied against for-profit firms. It makes a lot of sense because it obviously impacts their bottom-line profits and penalizes them for not complying with WorkSafeBC rules. That, to my way of thinking, is completely rational — obey the rules or make less profits. An eminently sensible stricture for a profit orientated business, is it not?
What I do not grasp is the rationale, or more precisely, the lack thereof, of applying such a fine to a publicly funded education system.
From my perspective, what it does, is take away $620,000 from the education of our children.
That means less special needs assistants, fewer field trips, more down-loaded classroom costs to often needy parents, more crowded classrooms and …. ad nausea.
Who it punishes are not the person or people responsible for the rule transgression but you and me and all other innocent taxpayers but, worst of all, it deprives our children of money that otherwise would help them learn what they need to know to be successful Canadians.
It’s a classic case of the one shoe fits all penalty. Also, it’s a classic case of tunnel vision by people who sit in offices far removed from classrooms who have no idea of the impact of their out-of-touch blanket prescriptions. Fie upon the lot of them, says I.
Fining public institutions does not compute. It does not make sense. It is counter-productive
A better approach would be to identify those rule-breaking, fine-creating perpetrators within the public enterprise, education or otherwise, and target them for retribution.
Not necessarily by fines either. Perhaps more effective would be demerits in efficiency reports, demotion in pay grade, compelled resignations or some such other penalty placed upon the actual transgressor rather than upon our children.
Taking our hard earned education tax dollars away in fines and thereby depriving our youth of mandated funds needed for their education makes no sense whatsoever.
In the case of public enterprises, all a fine does is to force the taxpayer to cough up twice. The person or people responsible tend to get off scot free.
Is that an appropriate sanction. I think not. I hope you do.
Our MLA, I’ve noticed, has a tendency to be selectively deaf but maybe our new coalition government has better hearing; minority governments often do. So I urge you to let your voice be heard if you think what I’ve said is not totally out-to-lunch.
For me, taking money from our children’s education via government imposed fines is just so totally dumb. It makes me wonder how such asinine actions can occur.
Of course, they persist only because thee and me who, presumably, can distinguish our behinds from our elbows, do not act together well enough to bring about needed change.
As Walt Kelly’s Pogo once said, “I have seen the enemy and it are us.”
Jim Bodkin
Vernon
