Thames Valley board selling surplus properties to trim $16.5M deficit

Article content

The cash-strapped Thames Valley District school board plans to sell surplus properties to cut its mounting $16.5-million deficit, its leader says.

“We have a few properties of vacant land across the district under consideration,” said Bill Tucker, the board’s interim director.

The board will meet in sessions closed to the public to discuss selling the properties, he said. Trustees have not decided which properties will be listed for sale.

Article content

Thames Valley trustees have been grappling with a multimillion-dollar deficit for more than a year, but learned recently it has continued to spike.

The London-based board had previously slashed its 2024-25 budget shortfall to $7.6 million from $18 million in February. Cuts included 58 elementary and 24 high school teaching jobs, 17 early childhood educator posts and four speech and psychological services positions.

Board officials told trustees last month that projected enrolments in board elementary and secondary schools were about 600 students too high, leading to a $6.4-million cut in provincial funding.

“While actual enrolment has increased year-over-year, it was by a smaller margin than projected,” said Sandra Macey, the board’s financial services manager.

To comply with Ontario Education Ministry rules, boards can’t have deficits greater than one per cent of their budget, Macey has said. Thames Valley’s budget totals about $1.2 billion, so its shortfall can’t top $12 million.

Other board cuts include $2 million from central operating budgets, she said.

Article content

Article content

Last month, the board eliminated the equivalent of 33 high school teaching jobs meaning “principals will have to cut classes here and there,” Tucker said.

Besides teachers having to teach different subjects in the January semester, the cuts mean fewer long-term occasional teachers, he said.

“It’s the equivalent of 33 teachers – but it doesn’t mean the loss of 33 teachers. It will be reflected in the reduction of occasional teachers,” Tucker said.

The board would add $2 million to $3 million to its deficit if it didn’t make the job cuts, he said.

Superintendent Cathy Lynd said staff are working to “address ongoing and future financial challenges” facing the board.

A full report is expected to go to trustees in February, she said.

Properties will be sold on an “as is” basis, according to the board’s properties for sale web page that doesn’t have any listings.

Two separate processes to entertain offers for its properties have been set up, the web page said:

• a time-limited, sealed bid process
• submission of offers “at any time”

“Interested parties should carefully review and follow the specific instructions,” the web page said.

Article content

The Thames Valley board is being audited by the Ministry of Education in the wake of a $38,000, three-day August retreat for 18 board administrators at the hotel in the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Details of the retreat were first reported by The Free Press.

Mark Fisher, education director since 2019, went on paid leave in the fallout of the Aug. 19-21 retreat.

Thames Valley is Ontario’s fourth-largest school board, with 84,000 students at 160 schools across the London region. The board has more than 5,500 teachers and 5,000 occasional staff, and about 2,000 support staff.

HRivers@postmedia.com
@HeatheratLFP

Article content