Capital Management

Program Description

Goals and Objectives

• Develop Ministry capital programs that support Government's debt management plans and capital investment strategies
• Ensure school boards are undertaking appropriate long-term capital planning
• Ensure equity in the educational program space provided for students province-wide
• Ensure School Protection Program loss claims meet Ministry's capital funding criteria
• Establish maintenance standards and facility audit process to ensure schools are appropriately and cost-effectively maintained, provide appropriate level of environment quality, and meet building life expectancies
• Continue to implement Government's cost-saving initiatives to allow more capital projects to proceed within available funding allocations

Major Program Activities

• Setting capital planning policies and procedures
• Providing capital planning instructions
• Assisting school boards and Francophone Education Authority (FEA) in developing Five-Year Capital Plans
• Reviewing and evaluating school boards' and FEA's Five-Year Capital Plan project request submissions for:
  • Ministerial approval;
  • presentation to Treasury Board;
  • consolidation into Ministry's Consolidated Capital Plan
• Managing transportation and portable classroom programs
• Managing capital asset inventories and fiscal framework data collection
• Processing of property loss claims under the Schools Protection Program
• Administering dispositions and leases of school board capital assets
• Revising educational specifications, including space utilization and school site size
• Developing building maintenance standards for school districts
• Revising Level II Facility Audit to include broadened evaluation of health and safety

Roles and Responsibilities

The British Columbia K-12 public education system is jointly managed by the provincial government, and the 59 elected school boards and the Francophone Education Authority. In terms of funding school building and improvements, Government and school boards share responsibility for ensuring that public schools provide the best possible learning environment for students. At the same time, the school system is legally required to provide a complete and accurate accounting of its use of public funds. Consequently, there is a shared accountability objective to allocate resources in a cost-effective manner. In addition, an equity objective seeks to have resources allocated fairly.

Government funds the capital costs of school construction through debt-service grants. The major components of Government's capital program are site acquisition, construction of new schools, additions to existing schools, and renovations and upgrades. In addition to capital funding allocations, school boards receive an annual capital allowance to cover the costs of renovations to extend the useful life of school buildings.

Under the public education system in British Columbia, the provincial government is responsible for:

• providing standards for the design and construction of schools;
• allocating funds for capital projects fairly, based on school district needs; and,
• operating and utilizing schools as efficiently as possible.

School boards are responsible for:
• designing and constructing schools buildings to specified standards;
• ensuring that school buildings and grounds are safe, secure and properly maintained; and,
• operating and utilizing schools as efficiently as possible.

Each year school boards submit five-year capital plans which include details on school building projects they wish to undertake. Each capital request is analyzed and assigned a priority ranking. The criteria used to determine priority are applied consistently, thereby ensuring that proposed capital projects are ranked fairly. Based on detailed analysis of district submissions, government establishes an overall capital budget for schools. Resources are allocated to the highest-priority projects, and school boards are advised which projects may proceed.