Thames Valley board chair urges Queen’s Park to cough up $30M

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Thames Valley District school board trustees are urging Queen’s Park to do what they say is the province’s responsibility – provide more funding to cover increases in employment insurance and CPP benefits for the board’s employees.

Trustees approved the board’s 2024-25 budget last week. The board’s deficit was reduced to $7.6 million from the original amount of $30 million by slashing positions and services.

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Board chair Beth Mai said the deficit isn’t the board’s fault and the Ministry of Education must step up and pay its bills.

Statutory benefits such as CPP and employment insurances have been underfunded by the province since 2018-2019, resulting in unfunded amounts of $13.7 million for the 2024-2025 year, she said.

“Despite not receiving adequate provincial funding, TVDSB has shouldered significant costs related to statutory benefits, short-term supply costs for absences, and special education costs, amounting to more than $30 million,” Mai said.

The board has “advocated for fair and adequate funding” with the local MPPs,  former education minister Stephen Lecce and current education minister Todd Smith to address “persistent funding gaps,” she said.

During budget deliberations at a June 25 board meeting one trustee referred to the province as “delinquent” for not fulfilling its duty to fully fund the board.

The board’s annual budget is about $1.2 billion.

“From an historical perspective the problem doesn’t lie in this room,” London trustee Sheri Polhill said at the meeting. “What I understand is that there is $30 million being owed to us by the Ministry (of Education). What I also know is that the ministry has made it mandatory for us not to use any of our reserves. We must complete this budget, be compliant without any of the money set aside.

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The board has even explored closing schools despite a provincial moratorium on school closings that has been in place since 2018, education director Mark Fisher said in June.

“We have had meetings . . . with the Ministry (of Education) to ask for potential dispensation or conditional approvals with community support around conditionally lifting the moratorium,” Fisher said. “The ministry has indicated a willingness to consider this option if the community is supportive of that decision.”

Mai said Tuesday that the board does not have any plans to close schools.

Besides the unfunded statutory benefits, unfunded short-term supply staff costs for absences and a lack of funding for special education costs has added to the board’s budget pressures.

“Special education is an area where we consistently spend beyond provincial allocations to meet the needs of students, a challenge common across Ontario that signals a need for funding re-evaluation,” Mai said.

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The board is reducing its special education budget by almost $1 million by using tablets instead of laptops and cutting spending on security by $300,000.

Funding for school trips will be slashed in half to $500,000.

Fifty-eight elementary school and 24 high school teaching positions will be eliminated. The board also is cutting 17 early childhood educator positions and four positions in speech and psychological services.

Funding is also being reduced for school budgets, printing and photocopying, textbooks and learning materials, and instructional supplies.

The Ministry of Education says since 2017-18, the government has increased overall investments in education by more than 20 per cent.

This year’s funding amounted to more than $28.6 billion, the ministry said.

“The Thames Valley District School Board, like all school boards, has the responsibility and flexibility to make decisions about funding for program delivery and staffing to best serve its students, based on local policies and priorities and in keeping with the current requirements of the regulations for core education funding,” the ministry said.

Unions have taken issue with double-digit income increases in 2023 for 17 top board officials – from 12 to 33 per cent – compared to the year before while the budget battle loomed.

“The students, who are our main focus, are not being resourced appropriately,” said Craig Smith, president of the Thames Valley district of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. “It’s tone deaf.”

Thames Valley is the fourth largest school board in Ontario, with more than 84,000 students and 14,000 staff­ at 159 schools.

HRivers@postmedia.com

@HeatheratLFP

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