I think Paul Willcocks and I may have found the B.C. Government $286.5 million. It was basically sitting in some couch cushions in the Education ministry (well, not quite, but it had slipped off everyone’s radar).

Before he moved to Honduras last year, Paul blogged about the Children’s Education Fund, one of those classic Gordon Campbell announcements that came and went without much fanfare. To be honest, I dimly remember it being announced, but hadn’t heard anything else on it, except for Paul's post. I asked a question about it on a recent Voice of B.C. episode, and both the NDP’s Advanced Education critic Michelle Mungall and host Vaughn Palmer confirmed they hadn’t heard about the Fund since it was announced.

The Fund was set up by Campbell in 2007, and under B.C. law, British Columbia taxpayers put $1,000 into the fund for every kid born or adopted in B.C. after 2007. The money is apparently invested and generates interest, and when those kids grow up, they theoretically can access their $1,000 plus interest—it’s believed it could be $2,000 or so. But they can’t get it until 2025.

The reason it slips under the radar is that it is a Special Account. I found it on page 178 of the Estimates blue book we received at the budget lockup. It lists the fund as worth $226 million on April 1, 2012. It will grow by $13.64 million in operating revenue (presumably interest from investments), a $46.7 million transfer from general fund, for a projected March 31, 2013 year-end balance of $286.5 million.

That's a pretty significant chunk of money. Page 67 in the Estimates Book puts it under Ministry of Education and gives a tiny bit of detail.

While I have a kid who would be eligible for this grant (only 1 of my 3 will be eligible due to the dates of their birth), I don't like it for a number of reasons.

First, it's unfair to kids who move to BC--it is only for those born or adopted here. If I move in with a two-week-old, she doesn’t get the grant. Second, no one really knows what post-secondary schooling will look like in 15 years. It could be a completely different model. Third, as Willcocks noted, why are we putting money aside for kids in 2025, when many today are struggling? Finally, it's not tied to income, so it's not fair--the extreme rich will get the same as the incredibly impoverished.

No one knows about the Fund; I imagine Campbell had plans to send letters and details to the parents of every newborn from 2007 to 2025, but that never happened—at least when my wife Jenny and I had our baby in March 2010.

With the provincial government looking to do more with less, it’s time to reallocated these $286.5 million.