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A group of French students from Houston Secondary School headed off to Europe for Spring Break. The group will visit France, Italy and Spain and see the Vatican, Rome and Barcelona.
N o r t h w e s t Community College is on the verge of cutting the number of university credit classes it offers at its main campus locations of Terrace, Prince Rupert and Smithers. And, in Smithers, it could mean the end of face-to-face classroom instruction. The result will also mean fewer university credit instructors being employed at the college. College communications director Sarah Zimmerman said no decisions have been made but that the college needs to respond to budget pressures and lower enrolments specifically in its academic programs. “What we’re trying to do is minimize the impact,” she said of everything from offering early retirement incentives and voluntary severance packages to instructors to combin-
ing classes where it makes sense to do so. A number of instructors have already been given notices of at least partial layoffs in accordance with union contracts, said Zimmerman. Zimmerman was responding to an April 2 release by the Northwest Community College Students’ Union which indicated college officials were about to cut up to 40 university courses – 15 in Prince Rupert, 6 in Terrace, and 14 in Smithers. Since there are only 14 courses being offered in Smithers, it would mean the end of classroom instruction there, said the union. “The one place locals can start a postsecondary education in our region is Northwest Community College,” said students’ union chair Steve Verblac in criticizing the college’s plan. See NWCC on Page 11
Regional District to change budgeting process By Flavio Nienow Black Press
During a regular meeting of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako on March 26, 2015, the board of directors carried a motion to make some changes in its budgeting process. One of these changes includes the creation of a finance
committee that would provide guidance to the board of directors during the budgeting process. The committee would have the purpose of helping the board of directors understand how their decisions affect the budget and the overall tax rates. According to the 2015 budget – which received final
approval on March 26, 2015 - taxation on region-wide services increased by 15.5 per cent, and taxation on regional rural services increased by 22.4 per cent. Some directors have pointed out that the increase in taxation came as a surprise to them, and realized the need to have a different approach to
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the budgeting process to avoid unexpected surprises. “We had people in our last meeting [March 12, 2015] that even after something passed our agenda three times, they were still surprised to see it,” said Mark Fisher, Director of Electoral Area A. “There are obviously some
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improvements that we need to make in our budgeting process, said Taylor Bachrach,” Smithers Mayor. “We don’t have an angle on this thing [the budget]; we need to make sure that we’re following the ball and that we’re making conscientious decisions along the way.” Although the budget is discussed in
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different meetings, the RDBN does not hold meetings specifically to discuss the budget. The board of directors agreed that there should be separate meetings to discuss the budget. Fisher said that the more the board discusses the budget, the better it will be for constituents. “If we have to
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through things twice, so be it,” he said. “Maybe we should go through it [the budget] even more.” Details of the new budgeting process are still not defined. The board of directors asked RDBN staff to create a report outlining “the new and improved budgeting process” for the next RDBN meeting.
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