Budget decision will affect next year’s crop of students
Tuesday July 1 2008
By Bob Borden, Trustee's Notebook
On June 24, the trustees of the Upper Grand District School Board approved the 2008-09 Budget. It is comprised of an Operating Expenditure Budget (Classroom/Non-Classroom) of $273,106,356 and an Accommodation Expenditure Budget of $20,943,514, for a total budget of $294,049,870. It is a balanced budget and meets the ministry’s expectations and standards.
While this budget represents an increase of 1.67 per cent ($4,481,367) from last year’s operating grants, it by no means covers the obligations facing the board this year. In order to balance the budget, the board and senior administration had to make some serious cuts to staff and program, while not introducing any new and needed initiatives or restoring cuts made last year.
There are several reasons why we are encountering budget constraints:
1. Despite continued housing growth in west Orangeville and south Guelph, we are a board in enrollment decline. Fewer students are coming out of the new sub-divisions and rural areas are experiencing a significant decline. While the population of Dufferin County will increase substantially in the next few years, the student population will actually decline. Therefore, since most of our grants are generated by student population, the income is on a decline. In addition, some costs are fixed regardless of the number of students e.g., you still have to heat and light a classroom whether it has 20 or 30 students in it, but the enrollment difference affects your grants (and we all know what is happening to energy costs.)
2. Two major grant categories have yet to be adjusted by the province and so we continue to suffer from cuts made during the Harris years. Despite the fact that we have undergone a E & E review of our Transportation Consortium, have complied with all their requests and demonstrated that we are running an effective and efficient system, we continue to be underfunded by $1.2 million, funds which must be taken from other areas of our operation. In addition, our need for teacher assistants and special education assistants continues to escalate. This year we are underfunded by $1.9 million in that area alone.
Here are a few of the major budget decisions that will affect your children next year:
• there will be more elementary teachers in the system due to the Ministry’s expectations around the Primary Class size initiative;
• there will be more secondary school teachers due to an increase in enrollment, strategies to keep students in school longer and an increase in special education classes at this level;
• there will be a 1.75 regional decrease in our child and youth counsellors despite an increased demand for their services;
• there will be a decrease in the number of special education assistants due to an overall enrollment decline;
• school budgets have been cut by less than 4 per cent;
• special equipment (SEA) has been increased to help assist learning disabled students complete their work; and
• the increased community use of schools grant will be shared with schools to offset the wear and tear on the building and equipment.
While many might hail this as a good news budget, I prefer to call it a budget of “a death by a thousand cuts.” While we have complied with the ministry’s expectations, we have had to make cuts to essential services (such as CYCs) in order to accomplish this task. There is still much to be done to correct the funding formula and all of this in light of the ongoing collective bargaining with our major unions (ETFO and OSSTF) over the summer months to establish a new set of contracts.
It is our hope that public education will continue to thrive in the face of the challenges facing it.
You can contact Bob Borden, trustee for the Town of Orangeville at 519-940- 0279, 519-822-4420 ext. 735 or bob.borden @ugdsb.on.ca. You can also visit the board’s website at www.ugdsb.on.ca and read the highlights of board meetings.
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