York Catholic District School Board blames $4.9M deficit on province

yorkregion.com
June 29, 2016
By Lisa Queen

A little breathing room.

That’s what York Region’s Catholic school trustees have bought themselves by passing a budget Wednesday morning that remains in the red.

Originally faced with a possible deficit of $12 million, trustees with the York Catholic District School Board managed to make enough cuts to reduce that to $4.9 million.

While it is illegal under provincial legislation for school boards to have a deficit, bringing the deficit down to less than 1 per cent of the $576-million operating budget means trustees don’t have to worry about Queen’s Park taking over the board, at least until final financial and enrolment figures are calculated at the end of the year.

Slashing the deficit down to $4.9 million comes at a cost, although there will be no layoffs as the board will reduce staffing through “adjustments”, such as a hiring freeze, attrition and re-aligning workers.

For example, special education funding is being cut by $600,000 through staffing and other adjustments.

The board will save $2.1 million through curriculum and administrative staffing adjustments. The snowplowing budget is being sliced by $450,000 and the professional development budget is being cut by $1 million.

The board will also look at closing schools over four years, beginning with Holy Family Catholic Elementary School in Thornhill in 2017/18.

Trustees are considering hiring a financial expert in the fall to review the board’s fiscal situation.

Staff salaries and benefits are responsible for 89.11 per cent - $517.6 million - of the board’s operating budget.

While treasurer Anna Chan admitted that is high compared to other boards and pointed out the board has received an additional $24 million in funding in the last five or six years, it didn’t stop trustees from bashing the province for causing their financial woes this year.

Queen’s Park’s insistence on central bargaining with employee unions meant the board had no control over the rising cost of salaries and benefits when new contracts were negotiated last fall, they said.

“The provincial government through central bargaining increased expenditures, through concessions, through the collective agreement and it has downloaded this on boards of education without any further increases in grants,” said Richmond Hill Trustee Dominic Mazzotta, who voted against the budget.

“Let’s face it, the provincial government has squandered and mismanaged their own budget and they’re looking at ways to recoup their losses. I cannot support further cutting on the backs of the spec ed (special education) students who we serve.”

The board has not received equitable and adequate funding and despite trying to minimize its costs in the past, has been saddled with ministry-mandated programs that have driven up expenses, Mazzotta said.

Education is taking a back seat to Premier Kathleen Wynne’s focus on infrastructure projects, Vaughan Trustee Dino Giuliani said.

“The provincial government is really the issue and its mandate is to put more into infrastructure and building roads than it is to be putting more money into health and education” he said.

“We are paying that price to build more roads and that’s the real high-level picture here.”

The board can’t blame the province for all its financial problems, board chairperson and Markham Trustee Carol Cotton said.

“If you want to walk and lay things at the feet of the ministry, you better have your own house in order first. Our biggest issue remains excess capacity (too many schools),” she said.

“Our lack of movement on...school closures when we should have started them five years ago, will reflect and, unfortunately, take away from the political respect for our situation at the moment. Once that’s resolved, we have a much firmer case to stand on.”

The board is facing significant financial challenges next year because the budget is based on some rosy assumptions, such as enrolment projections, that may not pan out, Vaughan/Woodbridge Trustee Maria Marchese said.

“I’m very worried we won’t be able to meet a lot of those targets,” she said.

“When I look at the assumptions, it gives me a great deal of concern going forward knowing what we’re facing.”