Several school boards project deficits in ‘difficult budget year’

Several Ontario school boards are presenting deficit budgets to the province in what one representative says has been “a very difficult budget year.”

“We have a funding problem in school boards in Ontario. What’s happening this year is that more and more boards are finding it difficult to break even,” said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association ( OPSBA), which represents English public boards and public school authorities representing more than half of Ontario’s student population.

“Almost every council in this province that I know says it’s been a very difficult budget year,” she said.

School boards are required to submit their 2024-25 budgets to the province by the end of June. According to the Education Law, these budgets should be balanced. But there are circumstances where councils can run deficits, such as if the deficit is less than 1% of the operating budget and can be covered by a surplus. If a projected shortfall exceeds 1 percent, ministerial approval is required.

Several councils have announced in recent weeks that they have approved their budgets, with some reporting shortfalls and others saying they managed to achieve a balanced budget by cutting costs.

The Halton District School Board (HDSB) approved its $920 million budget on June 19. That includes a projected $1.8 million shortfall even after cutting 94 positions and finding more than $10 million in “savings and efficiencies,” according to board President Amy Collard.

“I must stress that a cut on this scale will mean system-wide cuts, which will affect student learning,” Collard said in a statement to Trillium.

Collard said the main funding pressures facing the board include provincial investments not keeping pace with inflation, funding for additional teachers being $10 million less than actual costs and provincial funding for staff that is not “adjusted for to cover the additional $6 million in costs associated with improvements to Canada Pension Plans and Employment Insurance (CPP/EI) implemented over the past four years.”

“These cuts will have immediate and long-term impacts on the quality of education for all HDSB students, upper special education, kindergarten and secondary grades, the ability to maintain school buildings and grounds, and replace learning resources and technology,” she . said.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which is the largest school board in the country, is presenting a $3.5 billion operating budget that it said prioritizes things like “maintaining investments in special education” and school budgets.

But to balance its own budget, the board said it needs to find savings — $5 million from cutting “central staff” positions, $5 million in school operations, which could include fee-paying schools for the use or repair of Chromebooks that students have. and $10.5 million trying to tackle staff absenteeism. The board also said it plans to use about $28 million in disposition proceeds, which is money it gets from selling its properties. The council president previously said these funds are typically used to repair or replace aging council infrastructure.

“As administrators, our priority must be to focus our resources to support the academic success and well-being of all TDSB students. Through our commitment to finding efficiencies where possible outside the classroom and our ability to use unique funding, we have done just that,” TDSB President Rachel Chernos Lin said in a statement. “But make no mistake, we must continue to advocate to government to address our structural deficit and fund the true costs of operating in the City of Toronto and the unique populations we serve.”

For the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB), which covers London, Elgin and Middlesex and Oxford counties, the projected deficit of $7.6 million as part of its $1.2 billion budget is a “measured response to a budget balanced, underfunded, while advancing strategic priorities”.

“We recognize the persistent funding challenges that school boards, including TVDSB, continue to face,” President Beth Mai said in a June 26 statement. “We are facing the lowest level of funding per pupil in 10 years. Something about the way school boards are funded must change if we are to ensure the integrity of our educational programs and services in the years to come.”

The board said it was facing “significant unfunded amounts” of around $30 million for “statutory benefits, short-term supply costs for absences and special education”.

The Sudbury Catholic District School Board (SCDSB), the Rainbow District School Board and the Algoma District School Board are also facing shortfalls and plan to draw down their reserves, as reported by Sudbury.com and SooToday.

For the Catholic board, its reserves will drop to $5.48 million after a projected shortfall of $909,430 on its $121 million budget.

Board documents show SCDSB faces funding shortfalls in several areas, including about $1.8 million in teacher hiring, $200,000 for statutory benefits such as increased employer CPP contributions and $500,000 for transportation.

SCDSB chairman Michael Bellmore said he believed “quite a substantial number of councils” would show deficit budgets.

“I can certainly say that we are not the only board in this city or in this province in this type of situation,” Bellmore, who is also president of the Ontario Association of Catholic School Administrators, said during a recent board meeting.

Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board’s (DPCDSB) projected deficit is $39.8 million.

A board spokesperson said one of the main challenges is that the DPCDSB has “a 100% employer-paid long-term disability (LTD) benefit entitlement that is built into local collective agreements for all groups of employees’ and that costs have become ‘unmanageable’.

“In addition to LTD costs, continued enrollment declines in the region and funding shortfalls for statutory benefit costs and student transportation have also affected DPCDSB’s deficit position,” said Bruce Campbell. “These unfunded components require the Ministry to adjust the funding of basic education.”

The Toronto Catholic District School Board is looking at a $66.5 million shortfall for the coming school year, with the board saying the shortfall is “structural in nature, affecting many other school boards across the province.”

“The budget shortfall necessitated staffing adjustments that were accomplished through attrition and the elimination of hard-to-fill positions due to the current labor market shortage. These measures were taken to minimize the impact on school communities,” the board said in a statement. .

Windsor-Essex Catholic School District school board trustees voted earlier this month to approve a budget for the upcoming school year with a $2.3 million deficit. While an original proposal called for a shortfall of $1.97 million, trustees opted to increase it by $340,000 to add back staff positions “whose duties were expected to be reassigned,” including two workers for children and young people and two itinerant teachers for the deaf and blind.

Some of the board’s financial challenges include plans to spend $5.6 million more on special education than was allocated.

Meanwhile, Greater Essex County School Board (GECDSB) business superintendent and treasurer Shelley Armstrong said administrators have asked staff to review things like transportation agreements, ways to cut utility costs and program delivery, how would be looking at limits for the French Immersion Program to address the board’s funding challenges.

Although it hasn’t been decided yet, one possible way to save costs would be to adjust staffing so that class sizes are at the level the ministry is funding instead of having smaller classes in some cases, Armstrong said. She added that what the board receives in areas such as special education and transportation is not enough to cover expenses.

The board’s projected deficit of $6.38 million exceeds the 1% threshold, meaning it must submit a plan to eliminate that deficit and get the minister’s approval.

“Ultimately, short of the board receiving more funding, the board has to address the deficit and therefore will there be impacts on students? It could be in the future,” Armstrong said. Trillium. “So there are two things that need to change – either funding needs to increase or you need to look at spending and adjust your spending to be more in line with the funding you’re getting.”

Overall, Abraham, the OPSBA president, said councils faced a “constant, ongoing, annual problem of not getting enough funding for special education needs, for transport”.

In response to questions about the boards’ concerns, Isha Chaudhuri, spokeswoman for Education Minister Todd Smith, said the government is funding education “at the highest levels in Ontario’s history, with an additional $745 million for next school year and supported the employment of 9,000 people. educational staff from 2018, including 3,500 educational assistants.”

She said special education funding is increasing by $117.2 million and transportation will increase by about $80 million.

“To support Ontario’s growing communities, we have more than doubled funding to a historic $1.3 billion to build more schools faster. We will continue to invest in our students so they can get back to basics in what matters most: reading, writing and math,” she said.

But Abraham said that when it comes to areas like special education, both things can be true — that the government is spending more than before, “but still not spending enough on special education.”

“You have to find that money, so you make do with less,” she said. “You’re not renewing Chromebooks that should normally be renewed every five years, you’re waiting seven years. You save money or get money for those things by cutting other things.”

-With files from Heidi Ulrichsen and Darren Taylor