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HomeMy WebLinkAbout15 Letter to Minister of Education re Funding FormulaOTTAWA- CARLETON DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD Office of the Chair of the Board The Honourable Janet Ecker Minister of Education 22nd Floor, Mowat Block Queen's Park 900 Bay Street Toronto, Ontario M7A 1L2 Dear Ms. Ecker: 18 September 2000 We were pleased that your colleagues, John Baird and Brian Coburn, are willing to work with our Board to address costs and funding. Their interest was triggered by Formula Facts (copy enclosed). We released this paper in August to inform our community and others about the issues faced by the OCDSB as we head into the fourth and final year of significantly reduced funding. Jim Grieve, Director of Education, has already contacted Mssrs. Baird and Coburn and invited them to attend the first meeting of our newly formed Special Purpose Budget Committee which will be held on 27 September 2000. Enclosed is a description of the Committee and our Fall Calendar. Once again we will be reviewing our priorities and options carefully to see how we can live within the formula. At the same time, we would like to meet with you and your key staff to work together to correct some aspects of the formula and improve others. We need to do this in the context of both your provincial budget and our school board budget. Some areas on which we need to focus are explored in the following paragraphs. Full Funding for Salaries: The average salaries in the funding formula for some groups, including teachers, teacher assistants and office staff, are significantly less than the average salaries that the OCDSB must pay under existing contracts. This appears to be a clear error that costs the OCDSB approximately $11 million per year. Your Ministry staff and our staff need to work together to confirm this discrepancy and adjust the formula accordingly. We know the government does not intend that we reduce other already efficient operations in order to cover unfunded salary costs. Adequate Funding for the Incremental Costs of Special Education while Standards are Developed: We are delighted with your initiative to establish standards for special education; getting these complex services right is extremely important, both to students with special needs and to regular students. But the development of standards will take three years. In the meantime, the formula is driving us to cut special education programs an additional $10 million at a time when they are already showing strain. Again we would like our staff to work with yours to confirm the facts. On the basis of that work, we ask that, as a minimum, you cover our expenditures for the incremental costs of special education at the 2000 -01 level pending the outcome of the standards initiative. Full Funding for English as a Second Language: As you are aware, the OCDSB has a significant immigrant and Canadian-born population with high needs for ESL programs. The problem we face with ESL is similar to the problem with special education - except that there is no initiative to establish standards. We need such an initiative. In the 133 GREENBANK ROAD, NEPEAN, ONTARIO K?H 61.3 Tel: (613) 721 -1820 Fax: (6131 320 -6968 24 -Hour Automated Information Line (613) 596 -3222 Web Site: www,ocdsb.edu.on.ca meantime, considering the significant unmet needs in the OCDSB, we ask that you role our ESL funding back to 1998 -99 levels. New accommodation: As you can see from the enclosed calendar, we plan to vote on nine more elementary school closures on October 23, 2000. Our process has focused on families of schools within the Greenbelt. Rather than plan closures to achieve 100% occupancy within the Greenbelt, we have planned to achieve 90 %. If we dose the nine schools on the list, we will exceed 100% capacity across the district and will qualify for some capital funding. We will also generate funds through sales of property and from the EDC funds that you released for this purpose. But that will not be enough. We need to review our circumstances and strategies and consider some adjustments to meet the needs of this booming area. School Maintenance Backlog: The portions of the formula related to operations, maintenance and renewal of schools are conceptually sound except that they ignore the significant backlog of maintenance that boards like the OCDSB inherited from our predecessor boards. We estimate a backlog of $100 million. This is no fault of yours and it is no fault of ours. But all students need schools maintained to reasonable standards if they are to achieve their best. Please consider adding an element to the formula to enable us to begin chipping away at this liability. Transportation: Our predecessor boards operated extremely efficient transportation systems compared to other Ontario boards. We have been essentiall3° iimited to the amount of funding that our predecessor boards received, with some modest adjustments. But this requires double and triple busing of our students, a practice that impacts adversely on learning and extra - curricular activities. As well, some young children in the rural areas are simply not getting to kindergarten programs because of the low level of service. This is no way to strengthen programs in the early years. While the approach to the transportation element of the funding formula is being completed, we ask that you increase our funding to reflect an amount comparable to boards that can afford more generous transportation policies simply because their predecessor boards were less efficient than ours. For nearly three years the OCDSB has worked productively with you and your officials to improve the original funding formula. Together we have had some success. We are now down to the short strokes. I hope we can count on your support as we work through the details in the next few months. You can certainly count on ours! The OCDSB is prepared to make staff, Trustees and parents available to help with the development of any set of standards and to help analyze costs. We hereby request a formal meeting with you within the next three weeks to explore these issues and to establish a process to resolve them quickly in the context of your own budget process. As you are aware, the OCDSB and its stakeholders have been working on the development of a strategic plan over the past year. The Board approved its Strategic Plan 2000- 2003 on September 11, 2000. A copy is enclosed for your review. cc: Premier Harris Treasurer Eves All Local 1VfPPs Trustees Director of Education, James Grieve Sincerel Jim bbey Chair of the Board