A balanced budget is the good news. The bad news is $448,000 in excess spending on transportation within the Rainy River District School Board.
Trustees approved the 2003-04 budget at the board’s regular monthly meeting here Tuesday night.
In an effort to meet the rising costs of transportation throughout the district, nearly half-a-million dollars was taken out of the local priority/flexibility grant—55 percent of the total grant—just to keep the school buses running next year.
The provincial government froze transportation funding in 1997 and has done very little to invest in transportation since then.
According to the board, the rising costs of fuel, maintenance, declining enrolment, and capital costs of buses have put Rainy River District at a disadvantage and negatively affected transportation grants.
“What trustees find frustrating is that larger school boards in eastern Ontario possibly stand to make money on transportation,” board chair Gord McBride noted in a press release.
“While boards such as ours have to take nearly half-a-million dollars from other areas to provide adequate transportation for our students,” he added.
The board feels it has done everything possible to streamline transportation costs but it still can’t adequately fund the growing cost.
Add to this the recommendation from the Rozanski report on the state of education in the province calling for a complete overhaul of the funding formula and one can see why trustees are frustrated.
“Here we are, facing a crippling $450,000 transportation deficit for the 2003-04 school year, and what is the government’s response?” asked trustee Ron McAlister in the release.
“A paltry $20,000 funding increase.
“This despite Mr. Rozanski’s recommendation for a long overdue funding formula overhaul,” McAlister added.
“It is more of an insult than help, and impacts directly on our students because to service this deficit, we are forced to divert local priority/flexibility dollars, which could and should be spent for their benefit,” McAlister argued.
The budget also saw some funding gaps in relation to how much the board spends on teaching staff and the amount it receives in funding.
For instance, board next school year will spend $400,000 more for teachers’ salaries and benefits—which represents 76 percent of the entire budget—than funding it’s allocated.
School secretaries, as well as operations and maintenance, are under-funded by $159,000 and $240,000, respectively. The board also will be spending $218,000 more on educational assistants and special education resource teachers than the funding model provides for.
The budget is allowing for the increase in hours for library and special education assistants, and will provide funding for the introduction of Learning Support Classrooms.
There also will be $240,000 spent on the “Student At Risk” initiative to support those in Grades 7-12 who are at risk of not graduating.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
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