Committee of the Whole: June 10 & June 11, 2025

Written By Cathryne Milburn

The Committee of the Whole Meeting for the Ottawa-Carleton District School took place on June 10, 2025. Staff brought forward 1 report with 2 recommendations for discussion.

Staff brought forward Report 25-038, Staff Recommended Budget for 2025 to 2026, for discussion. This report outlines the staff-recommended operating and capital budgets for the 2025 to 2026 school year.

As outlined in the Education Act, school boards must plan for a balanced budget before the start of each school year. The school system's fiscal year starts on September 1. If the District chooses not to pass a balanced budget, then we run the risk of the Ministry taking over the school board. The first part of the budgetary process is the staffing plan, which was approved in March. For more information on the staff plan, please refer to my blog post here.

The Ministry of Education released the technical papers on Friday, May 23, which help to build this staff-recommended balanced budget. In building the budget, the District received no new significant funding, and there is still chronic underfunding of public education.

In addition, the 2024 to 2025 year saw lower-than-expected enrollment and increased compensation costs, resulting in a $4.2 million deficit. The District continues to face pressures and challenges related to inflation, staff replacement costs, portable classrooms and structural deficits. To address the deficit, staff also brought forward a staff reduction proposal as part of the budget. In total, a reduction of 135.11 Full-Time Equivalent positions. This results in the below staff-recommended balanced budget: ​

​During the discussion, I asked the following questions:

  • Question (timestamp 35:55): Director, when did you see the budget that is being presented tonight?

    Answer: I saw it earlier this afternoon. They have been working on the budget up until the start of this meeting.

  • Question (timestamp 35:55): Can you please explain the rationale behind the learning support services reductions under header 13? Why these positions? What else was looked at while proposing these reductions?

    Answer: We worked with Learning Support Services, and these were the reductions they felt could be absorbed from the central positions.

  • Question (timestamp 35:55): Can you please explain the rationale behind the discretionary teachers and principal positions reductions under header 14? Why these positions? What else was looked at while proposing these reductions?

    Answer: We worked with discretionary teachers and the principal branch, and these were the reductions they felt could be absorbed from the central positions. We also corrected the e-learning distribution.

  • Question (timestamp 35:55):  Can you please provide more examples of the 20 central administration positions that are proposed for reduction?

    Answer: The District shaved the ice cube at the corporate level with some with human resources, some in administration and more. We talked about the and benchmarked with other school boards across the province.

  • Question (timestamp 35:55): Can you please explain the rationale behind the school-based administration and support reductions under header 16? Why these positions? What else was looked at while proposing these reductions?

    Answer: Some of those are reductions, and some growth that was mainly driven by the formula provided by the Ministry of Education.

  • Question (timestamp 35:55): Can you please explain the rationale behind the extended day and early learning reductions under header 17? Why these positions? What else was looked at while proposing these reductions?

    Answer: This is growth overall and a change in composition. The changes are related to ratios and legislative requirements.

  • Question (timestamp 1:14:03): Does this need to be voted on tonight? 

    Answer: No. The real question is, do the Trustees want to defer this to next week for discussion?

During the discussion, a Trustee brought forward a motion to defer the report for decision to Monday, June 16. I voted in favour of the motion, and it failed.

The meeting was adjourned for the evening and called back for June 11, 2025.

During the Committee of the Whole Meeting for the Ottawa-Carleton District School that took place on June 11, 2025, we continued the discussion on Report 25-038, Staff Recommended Budget for 2025 to 2026.

During the discussion, I voted in favour of an amendment that a Trustee brought forward to add the following to the recommendation:

THAT the unconsolidated 2025-2026 operating budget of $1,244,794,269 as presented in Report 25-038, 2025-2026 Staff-Recommended Budget and detailed in the 2025-2026 Staff-Recommended Budget Binder, be approved; except as follows:

i.               The summer learning program will be funded at $0.65 million,

ii.             The estimate for total in-year savings to be found will be $3.65 million,

and THAT the 2025-2026 capital budget of $114,488,227 as presented in Report 25-038, 2025-2026 Staff-Recommended Budget and detailed in the 2025-2026 Staff-Recommended Budget Binder be approved.

The amendment failed.

During the discussion, I asked the following questions:

  • Question: I have heard a couple of numbers bounced around about how much in-year savings we need to find. can we please confirm the amount?

    Answer: $3 million

  • Question: Can you please be more specific on where you plan to find these in-year savings?

    Answer: The savings levers have not all been pulled.

I made the following comments (timestamp ##:##:##):

I will be voting against this portion of the budget.

To borrow our Associate Director’s saying, I understand that we have shaved the ice cube as much as we possibly can. We were given this budget less than 30 hours ago at the fault of the province providing the needed information at the eleventh hour once again. This does not give us enough time to adequately consult the public and ensure they know we are no longer shaving the ice cube because it has melted.

I want to reiterate that I am sitting around this board table for a third year in a row seeing staff that are burnt out from a budget process with technical papers that are late, inadequate funding for our education system, and timelines and requirements for a balanced budget that are unrealistic, set by a provincial government that has sent clear indicators of where its priorities are and are not.

I did not want to support the first half of the budget, but I did with the hope that additional funding would come from the province with the release of the technical papers. That did not happen.

With these proposed reductions, I am seeing an even harder hit without additional funding. I am also very concerned that we will find $3 million of in-years savings but we heard tonight if we go over that amount, it would be too risky. I really believe that the provincial government needs to answer for the chronic under funding of education since we are not the only board going through this.

I want to be clear, I understand by voting no, that we run the risk of being taken over by the provincial government, but I refuse to continue to do their dirty work for them and pretend that this is business as usual.

If the provincial government continues to underfund education, I refuse to vote in favour of a balanced budget mandated by them and that benefits them at the cost of our staff, local communities and most importantly, our students.

I voted against the recommendations in Report 25-038, Staff Recommended Budget for 2025 to 2026. The recommendations were carried.

Once again, I must reiterate that in my personal opinion, as the provincial government continues to tighten the budget year over year for education, passing a balanced budget is becoming increasingly harder and requires school boards to make tougher decisions about cutting funding throughout the system. It is of the utmost importance that we properly fund our education system, and I call on the provincial government to re-examine how it is currently spending its money and reallocate much-needed funds to the education system.

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 and 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.

Key links

Cathryne Milburn

By day I am passionate about diversity, inclusion, and communications. By night I am passionate about education, student well-being, and student achievement.

https://cathrynemilburn.com/
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Committee of the Whole: June 3, 2025