Dharm Makwana

UFC may be in town this week, but the bigger fight is going on between Vancouver School Board and the provincial education minister.

The latest gloves-off bout went down after an hour- long meeting was cut short Tuesday morning when Minister Margaret MacDiarmid emerged and described the encounter at SFU Harbour Centre as "difficult" and "challenging".

The two sides, bound under the province's school act, are fighting over money, according to VSB chairwoman Patti Bacchus.

"She doesn't really want to talk about funding," Bacchus said of MacDiarmid. "We know school districts throughout B.C. will say - and certainly our B.C. School Trustees Association has said - that the top three issues for education in B.C. are funding, funding, funding, yet we have a minister who refuses to talk about the issue."

MacDiarmid attempted to quash the funding debate, declaring no new education dollars will be made available for the 2010/11 school year.

Instead, she continually returned to comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland's 88-page report critiquing the board's slant towards advocacy over stewardship.

"They're seeming to me to be defending the status quo and that would be something the comptroller general, definitely in her report, has not recommended," she said.

The two sides have scheduled another meeting.