Committee of the Whole: Budget: May 27, 2024

The Committee of the Whole Budget meeting for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board took place on May 27, 2024. Staff brought forward a presentation on the new funding model from the Ministry of Education.

The presentation provided an overview of the changes in the funding model from the Ministry of Education.  Previously, the Ministry provided funding through three main models:

1. Grants for Student Needs (GSN)

2. Grants for Student Needs (Capital)

3. Priorities and Partnerships Funding (PPF)

Through these funding changes, the Ministry has created main themed areas for education:

• Renew and refocus: Education funding should reflect the purpose of the funding, be easily understandable, and should reflect funding that is permanent from year to year.

• Streamline: Education funding should be structured in a way that will make it. Easier for parents and families to understand.

• Strength Accountability: Education funding should be accountable to families, and parents by ensuring it is spent for the purchase intended, while continuing to balance the need for flexibility across school boards based on their local needs.

• Public Communications: Communicating the funding formula in a way that parents and the public can more easily understand and communicate all funding to school boards in a timely manner.

Under this new funding model, there are three main funding formulas:

• Grants for Student Needs (Operating) has been renamed Core Education Funding which provides permanent and ongoing operating funding to school boards and funding to maintain schools under six main funds:

  • Classroom Staffing

  • Learning Resources

  • Special Education

  • School Facilities

  • Student Transportation

  • School Board Administration

• Priorities Partnerships Funding has been renamed to Responsive Education Programs which provides targeted, temporary and time-limited supplemental funding to school boards based on nine government-priority funds:

  • French-language

  • Indigenous Education

  • Literacy

  • Mental health

  • Supporting vulnerable students

  • Student readiness

  • Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

  • Operations

  • Emergency and Contingency funding

• Grants for Student Needs (Capital) has been renamed to Building, Expanding, and Renewing Schools provides funding for the construction, purchase, additions, renovations of school, the maintenance and improvements of the condition of schools, as well as debt service cost under six main themes:

  • Capital Priorities

  • School Condition Improvement

  • Temporary Accommodation

  • Land Purchases

  • Child Care Capital

  • Debt Service Costs

From a staff perspective, these changes mainly reflect a re-mapping of the funding and do not reflect a reduction in funding from the Ministry. During the discussion, I made the following comments (timestamp 1:06:30):

• Question:  These themes that have been identified in the presentation are these themes that were identified by the ministry or by our staff?

  Answer: The themes were decided by the Ministry of Education.

• Question: I really appreciate the work that our staff has done to interpret this budget. I am struggling with this theme and the reason I am saying it is because it says communicate all funding to school boards in a timely manner. I would like a comment from staff between the changes to Bill 124 and the changes for these funding themes on how many hours staff have spent interpreting the changes.

  Answer: This could not have been a worse year to implement these changes.  Staff have raised concerns to the Ministry on building the budget in an already tough and challenging time and adding Bill 124 changes with no additional support offered to school boards. A number of hours is hard to quantify, there have been countless overtime hours and weekends to interpret this change and to build the budget. This is causing low morale and burnout amongst our staff.

• Comments: I am baffled year-over-year that we are restricting the funding to education. Education will be the way that we change the world and I am very baffled that the province is saying that we are communicating all funding to school boards in a timely manner because as someone who’s seen it firsthand and seen the staff burnout, I would have to say that I am questioning what timely manner definition being used.

Please note, that the opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not reflect an official position of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board or the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board of Trustees. Please note answers from staff are paraphrased, the recording can be found here if you would like to watch the entire meeting. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me using my contact form here.

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Key links

• Video for the Committee of the Whole Budget on May 27, 2024

• Agenda for the Committee of the Whole on May 27, 2024

• Province of Ontario – Education Funding for School Boards for 2024 to 2025