The Ontario Education Minister has indicated a handful of Ontario school boards for their financial struggles, but a look at recent estimates shows that almost two thirds of the 72 together are projecting deficit in this school year or waiting only to reach the point of view.
Not all boards planning deficits are in trouble, but they didn’t operate so previously so close to the line. With some exceptions, the Education Law requires that the joints do not execute deficits.
In the media interviews, the Minister of Education, Paul Calandra, said that the trusts of the five school boards under provincial control “refused to make the right decisions” to maintain their balanced budgets.
“It’s a student financing model,” Calandra said in an interview at CBC Toronto’s Metro tomorrow September 5. “A large majority of [boards] They are able to execute a very effective system with a surplus. “
Metro tomorrowThe Minister of Education of Ontario, Paul Calandra, considers the elimination of school boards
As students return to the classroom, the Minister of Education of Ontario, Paul Calandra, is considering eliminating the supervision of school boards at the local level. He says he could release resources, but he is being received with criticism from students, teachers and defenders.
Calandra is considering eliminating or changing the roles of the trusts, and intends to present a plan before the end of the year.
But an expert who tracks the school boards says that the five under the microscope: the School Board of the district of Ottawa-Carleton, the Catholic School Board of Dufferin-Peel, the school board of the District of the Valley of the Thames and the public and Catholic joints of Toronto) are not unique, but part of a larger tendency caused by the way in which Ontario fondan in the local schools.
“When you see so extended difficulties between school boards that they can balance their budgets, that shows that this is not a problem of bad financial management,” said Sachin Maharaj, a professor assistant at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.
“This is a systemic problem.”
Master’s flying, special education costs
The finance of the School Board are complicated, which involve many types of subsidies and many reports to the government. Each Board is required early estimates, check those estimates and then send financial statements at the end of the year.
The estimates of the 72 together presented last summer for the 2025-26 school year, show 25 approved deficit budgets, while another 19 simply managed to balance their books, often after making difficult cuts. The surpluses among the remaining 28 meetings were small compared to previous years, and it is projected that almost all surpluses this school year cost less than $ 500,000.
As recently as the 2021-22 school year, a report from the financial responsibility office reported that 15 together had a deficit, while the other 57 recorded surpluses. Report of a general auditor A few years ago, he also said that most boards executed surpluses in 2019-20 due to rigid rules.
The boards have fought since they lost their fiscal powers under the Mike Harris government in the 1990s, Maharaj explains, but those problems were exacerbated by the pandemic.
“There is a general scarcity of teachers not only in Ontario but in all of Canada,” he said. “Given the conditions in the classroom at this time, it is very difficult to recruit and retain the teachers.”
Maharaj explained that the realization of personnel classes, when there is such a high billing is expensive.
In all ontarium, school boards report other common pressures.
More children struggle to regulate their behavior or have complicated needs that require educational assistants, which causes the together to spend too much on special education. Salary increases, mandatory benefits and increases in the Canadian pension plan have not been completely covered by the province, they say.
Calandra’s press secretary said Ontario is spending a record of $ 30.3 billion in education for 2025-26, and expects all joints to spend each dollar directly on students and teachers. But the minister has also declared that he is open to review the financing formula of the province if supervisors say they are causing challenges.
Not all equal created deficits
Some joints under supervision are planning deep deficits again this year.
For example, the Catholic School Board of Dufferin-Peel foresees another deficit of almost $ 33 million. A financial investigation of past spring shed light on why it is in such a poor way: it is one of the only joints that pay the total cost of long -term disability, and after the claims increased during the pandemic they have accumulated deficits of more than $ 100 million.
Dufferin-Peel has also lost 12 percent of its student population in just seven years; Registration has fallen to 70,500. That means less income because the participation of the lion in the financing of education in Ontario comes from a central education subsidy based on the number of students enrolled in a board.
“As the inscriptions have decreased in several school boards, this has put true financial tension and has affected its ability to balance their budgets,” Maharaj said.
Meanwhile, Dufferin-Peel has almost 18,000 spaces of infrautilized students, but the province has had a moratorium in school closures since 2017.
Other joints that are not under supervision, such as the School Board of the Great Essex district in Windsor, have also fought to make cuts.
But being in deficit does not necessarily mean that a joint is in trouble. Some boards entered red on purpose to finance special projects. A Board can obtain the approval of the minister to execute a deficit if it is equivalent to less than one percent of the income and there is a plan to get rid of it.
For example, the Renfrew County District School Board planned a deficit of $ 450,000 so that you can update the trades and equipment of the store and implement a well -being system to try to reduce the absences of the personnel.
Similarly, the Ottawa Catholic School Board is running a deficit of $ 5.6 million this year to pay game structures, outdoor learning spaces, qualified trades equipment and students’ mental health.
Lisa Schimmens, associate director of Commercial Affairs, said that the English Catholic Board of Ottawa is in healthy form and neglects these projects in their reservations, which competes with a savings account.
“Then it is not a structural deficit,” he said. “If those $ 5.6 million were to keep the lights on, then it is a problem.”
Ongoing deficit
In fact, the minister’s attention has come to the joints that have deficits year after year, which accumulates in a major problem.
Five meetings are under supervision, but according to financial estimates, 11 meetings are expected to start the school year without reservations for operations.
Meanwhile, five joints projected deficits beyond one percent of the income allowed under legislation, including three where trustaries remain in place.
For example, the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board He reported this summer that he had accumulated deficits Because I was spending more in special education to meet greater students’ needs. He planned to make cuts, including 23 jobs for several years to balance again.
The York Catholic District School Board has also extinguished its reserves and has presented a deficit greater than the allowed. As pear-dufferin, el York Catholic Board budget Describe the constant loss of students as a demographic change. Now it has 10,000 empty spaces.
CBC News asked the press secretary of the Minister of Education why some meetings were taken and others did not receive an answer for publication time.
The increase in registration helps with inflation
In contrast, what keeps the Catholic School Board of Ottawa in good form is an increase in registration, says Schimmens. He has been adding at least 2,000 students a year, the equivalent of four primary schools or a rural school board.
Each additional student provides an average of $ 13,986 to OCSB. That helps the Board to resist inflation, said Schimmens.
“If we were not growing, then it would be much more challenging,” he explained.
Rapid Growth brings its own challenges when the Board adds portable classrooms and builds new schools, but it is a good problem, says Schimmens.
In the Renfrew County Public Schools Board, the Director of Education Kristen NEMI said that the Board has stable registrations and reservations, but indicates special pressures in smaller rural joints.
The waiting lists for the pathologist of the speech and language of the Board and the behavior analyst are long. Even so, the Board spends on special education knowing that these services are not available in the community.
Rural joints can also have some small schools distributed in a large area. Whitney Public School, on the edge of Algonquin Park, has only 33 students. Keeping it heated and personal is a different type of pressure.
To work, Renfrew County has reduced jobs centrally and extends the cuts widely to soften their impact. The Board knows that it must cut, because families are doing the same in the current economic climate.
Even so, Niemi says: “It is becoming increasingly difficult to make those decisions.”
