Hi again from your Public School Trustee. The Board completed the budget deliberations for the Bluewater District School Board. Fun stuff!!
I am on the Budget Sub-Committee whose job it is to work out a balanced budget and present it to the full Board for consideration. That doesn’t mean the budget passed untouched, it just means that this year the full Board started working with a fully balanced budget.
This way, making adjustments forced us to find off-sets. It was better than last year where the Board, starting from scratch late in the process, had to try to blindly slash and burn to make it balance in one go-around.
The budgeting was a smoother and more organized process this year with consultations and input from a number of our stakeholders.
Let me say up front, these are solely my personal observations. Also, let me state that our teachers and staff are full value for what we pay them. The wealth of extra-curricular programs and activities within our Board enriching our students’ education and lives are a testament to the hard work and dedication of all staff.
Here are a few things that the public should be aware of. The Ministry has a calculation of how many teachers we need based on the number of students we have. That’s the number we basically work with for staffing
However, there are several problems. The first is a rather glaring one. Remember the Ministry assured everyone that the Early Learning (full-day/every-day kindergarten) would be fully funded. Well the money given to Bluewater is about $218,000 less than it will cost … that’s about two teachers and two ECEs … i.e. two full classrooms.
If the Ministry fails to top up to meet its promise, then we have to find that money somewhere else. Since we are already underfunded by 35 teachers across the Board, there is a serious problem. We really cannot live with that shortfall for the Early Learning, particularly if the Ministry continues each year to fail to meet its promise of full funding progressively for the next five years of implementation. The shortfall just becomes larger and it will eventually drown us.
I do not know how the Ministry comes up with its dollar value for teachers to compute the money which it sends us, but what they send is about $3.8M shy of what we need to pay our teachers. To me it is quite simple, “a teacher costs what a teacher costs.”
For the life of me I do not understand why the Ministry fails to give us the money to cover the actual cost for the teachers the Ministry itself says we need. Instead, we have to take money from classroom supplies, text books, building maintenance, staff development and other crucial areas to cover that shortfall. The implications of those cuts should be obvious … ever wonder why our school libraries are in poor shape and text books are old?
It is apparent that our Board does not fit the funding model for teachers and the arguments about pay scales, grids and benefits are totally irrelevant … “a teacher costs us what a teacher costs us.” It is what we have to pay. It is reality. The Ministry is simply playing games with you and me (and denying our children the education they deserve) when they fail to forward the funds required.
The other aspect which baffles me is that while we do have a gradually declining student population at the moment, our costs tend to reduce in lumps i.e. when we can close a school, cancel a bus route, reduce staff, etc. By the way, the lumps are not simple … if a school closes, obviously transportation goes up. Nevertheless, the Ministry reduces our funds gradually so that unless we can actually close a school, reduce bus routes, reduce staff etc., the process is like water torture.
Anytime I have been responsible for a budget in business it has been under the concept that there are fixed costs and variable costs; capital costs and operating costs. Having studied the “funding formula” I see no clear distinction except for maybe capital … perhaps I have missed something. For those of you who may be interested the 2010/11 funding grants regulation (all 180 pages), it is on the web at:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/1011/grants10.pdf
The readers’ digest version (all 79 pages) is at:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/1011/funding10.pdf
As I read more of the information available and digest the implications, it appears that as hard as the trustees work, there are significant challenges which rest solely with the lack of money. It has been the position of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, supported our school board, that any Ministry initiative must be fully funded by the Ministry.
With the Early Learning program, a major Ministry initiative, they have failed to do this. I would state by extension, they fail to do so every time they fail to give us the funds to pay what it actually costs for our teachers.
We need our teachers; we value them; and they are a vital part of the Bluewater educational environment so, we always find the money … but at a significant cost elsewhere.
I had some brighter news as a follow-on but this submission is now rather long so I will save the good news stories till next week. Thanks for wading through the gloom with me.
Paul
