As the long-winding saga of the SD61 trustees comes to an end, Minister of Education Lisa Beare said taxpayers were on the hook for north of $419,000 in back pay for the previously fired school board and their provincially-appointed advisor.
On Monday (May 25), the ministry quashed orders removing nine trustees from the Greater Victoria School District board after the courts found that the province failed to provide the documents asked for in a document protection order – over 100 pages of texts and emails, mostly from the ministry’s associate deputy minister, Jennifer McCrea.
Of the costs Beare spoke about on Wednesday (May 27), she said just under $360,000 went to the nine trustees’ back pay, and just under $60,000 went to Kevin Godden, who was appointed to help the board develop a safety plan before they were fired.
In early 2025, the nine board trustees were removed by Beare after the board opted to remove school police liaison officers following a recommendation from B.C. Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender, a move the trustees challenged in court.
The costs she mentioned did not cover the cost of Sherri Bell, who was appointed as the official trustee, replacing the board after they were fired. The costs also don’t include legal fees, which are “privileged information” and is up to the petitioners to release.
“None of these costs will be coming out of the classrooms of SD61. We are assuming those costs, and the budget remains the same,” Beare told reporters at the B.C. legislature.
She reiterated that there was a “significant error made,” and reinstating was how they rectified that error. Beare called the texts in the documents “very unprofessional in nature,” the most damning of which included conversations between McCrea and former VicPD Deputy Chief Mike Brown, who called the trustees morons and losers on multiple occasions.
She was unable to speak on McCrea’s current status within the ministry because it’s an “HR matter,” however, she said she will “get to the bottom of fully what happened here so that it doesn’t happen again.”
The trustees officially took back their posts in SD61 on Monday.