What’s behind booming London Catholic school board’s budget deficit

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The London region’s Catholic school board is planning for a nearly $900,000 deficit as it pays for portables and extra school buses to handle “extreme growth” in its student population.

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The London District Catholic school board is expecting a shortfall of about $883,000 in its 2024-25 budget year, down from the approximately $1.9 million shortfall it estimated in June.  

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“The deficit for 2024-25 is driven mainly by short funding for transportation and short funding for various other expenses,” said Debbie Jordan, executive superintendent of business.  “We’re in need of new schools in this area and we’re waiting right now for some approvals.

“In the meantime, when we don’t have those approvals, we have to spend money on portables, which is very costly.” 

The deficit comes after the board posted a $9.5-million surplus in its 2023-24 budget year that was driven by increased enrolment.  

But the bulk of that surplus was spent on portables and other strategies to cope with its enrolment spike, Jordan said Saturday, and was not rolled over to reducing the 2024-25 shortfall.    

The London-based Catholic school board – the fastest-growing Catholic board in the province – has seen its student population skyrocket by 30 percent in five years. It has added nearly 6,400 students since 2020, enough to fill about 20 elementary schools. 

The problem is, they don’t have a scores of new schools at the ready to accommodate the surge. In the short-term, the board is forced to pay for portables and cover the costs of busing students from over-capacity schools to others, Jordan said.    

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Portables are costly. The temporary classrooms sit on foundations and have electrical servicing. Just placing a portable at a school ranges from $110,000 to $120,000, Jordan said. The lease for the portable, approximately $1,800 to $2,500 per month, is an ongoing cost for the board, she said.  

The London District Catholic school board – which has approximately 27,500 students at 54 schools – has added 130 new portables over the past three school years, including more than 50 this school year. 

Since the board is growing rapidly, it won’t address the deficit through job cuts, Jordan said. The Catholic board will look for efficiencies and other ways to make up the shortfall, she said.  

“We try and run as efficiently as we can, looking at scheduling and other things,” she said, adding initiatives to reduce sick time and share supplies between schools, instead of buying more, are also in the works. 

Getting new capital funding for schools would get many portables off the board’s balance sheet, reducing its deficit, Jordan said.  

The board’s latest capital wish list to the province includes four elementary school and two new high schools. Its top priority is a new north London high school that would have 1,999 student spaces and an 88-space childcare facility.  

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Elementary schools in the city’s southwest and southeast, each with a 655-pupil capacity, are its second and third priorities.  

The Catholic board’s projected 2024-25 deficit is not at the threshold where Ontario’s education ministry needs to be informed, Jordan said. The London District Catholic school board has an approximately $380 million annual budget overall. 

The Catholic school board deficit comes as Thames Valley District school board officials attempt to wrangle an approximately $16.5 million shortfall in its 2024-25 budget, red ink fueled by an over-estimation of its enrolment. 

jbieman@postmedia.com 

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