With a new policy in place School District 83 is taking attendance, and it doesn't pay to miss a board meeting.
At the May 20 board meeting, trustee Amanda Krebs introduced an update to Policy 135 Trustee Attendance to add that "a trustee who is absent from a meeting outside of the guidelines outlined... will incur a deduction of $400 from their remuneration for each missed meeting."
Krebs explained the proposed change came from a discussion at the recent BC School Trustees Association annual general meeting that emphasized the importance of representatives being committed to public education. She added that with an election coming up next year that could bring new faces to the board, it's particularly relevant to get that put in place, noting that other districts have experience attendance issues.
鈥淲e should be making sure we have policies in place that will attract people who are committed to this work,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ne of the things that we were missing was, what happens if we do have attendance issues... our number one job... is to make decisions at meetings, and so if people aren鈥檛 here to make these decisions, it has an impact.鈥�
She added that the $400 is not an arbitrary figure, but was a calculation of how many meetings trustees attend in a month, which is generally three 鈥� committee meeting, regular board, and in-camera 鈥� over 10-months. As they sometimes have additional meetings to attend, Krebs based the calculation on the entire year to account for the extras that crop up, taking base remuneration, divided by 12 months, then by three meetings 鈥渁nd it was about $423.鈥�
The board supported the motion, with trustee Marianne VanBuskirk noting that dedication to their roles is important as the chosen representatives.
鈥淲e are to be accountable to the general public who elect us, and I feel that if the general public was here, they would be very pleased. That they would want a dedicated board... to represent them, so I would support this.鈥�
Chair Corryn Grayston said she appreciated this coming forward and as an important and necessary policy addition.
"I think attendance at meetings is very important, not only that we make impactful decisions but we also have a lot of important information that comes to us in advance of having to make those impactful decisions," she said. "So to participate fully is to actually make decisions that are well rounded and with full information."