'This stinks less than supervision': Windsor-Essex school board passes budget with cuts

The Greater Essex County District School Board has passed its budget for the 2025-2026 school year with a deficit of nearly $1 million, cuts to 145.5 staff positions and the elimination of some French immersion and International Baccalaureate programs.

Trustees who voted in favour of the budget railed against what they called provincial underfunding of the education system and said they were only supporting the budget because they were legally obligated to do so.

They also said they wanted to honour the efforts of staff to make cuts with as few impacts on students as possible, and said they wanted to avoid losing local control over decision-making. 

"This stinks less than supervision," Trustee Julia Burgess said, referencing the potential for increased provincial oversight over board decisions.

"I support this budget, and I'm grateful for it, but I think it stinks."

Burgess called her vote "a political decision," and likened it to "doing the provincial government's dirty work."

Board required to balance budget by 2026-27

The budget's passage follows a decision last fall by the Ministry of Education to grant the board permission to pass its 2024-25 budget with a shortfall of approximately $6.4 million on the condition that it takes steps to eliminate its structural deficit.

Specifically, the board had to prepare a multi-year financial recovery plan and balance its budget by 2026-27, while maintaining an accumulated surplus of at least two per cent of its operating allocation – about $9 million that year. 

The province made the demands after board Chair Gale Simko-Hatfield sent a letter to then-Education Minister Todd Smith calling for urgent action to address budget shortfalls.

In particular, she urged more funding for special education, supply and occasional staff, and statutory benefits.

Those concerns were raised again at Tuesday night's meeting.

"Student transportation is dictated by regulation, and so we know how much it's going to cost to provide that transportation, and yet the money that we get in transfers doesn't meet that," Trustee Ron Le Clair said. 

"Imagine if we said we're not going to backfill for absenteeism. … Maybe we stop doing remittances to the federal government for EI and CPP … How do we highlight how desperate our situation is?"

Provincial funding for special education falls short of the board's projected expenditures by more than $8.5 million in 2025-26, according to the draft budget.

Funding for supply and occasional staff falls short of projections by slightly more than $7 million.

Cuts to staff positions

"In order to present a fiscally responsible budget, which centres student achievement at its core, the 2025-26 budget utilizes unenveloped funding from other unrestricted areas within the core education funding and other revenue sources such as international student tuition, rental revenues of school spaces and interest income from cash held in bank accounts to cover some of the funding gaps," the budget document reads.

The spending cuts in the budget include the elimination of two full-time-equivalent social worker positions and five full-time-equivalent psychologists, speech language pathologists and communication disorder assistants. 

They also include the elimination of the French Immersion programs at Marlborough Public School and Forest Glade Public School; the elimination of the International Baccalaureate Program – Primary Years Program and the International Baccalaureate Program at Leamington District Secondary School; and the phase-out of the International Baccalaureate Program at Riverside Secondary School. 

The board had previously discussed eliminating special education and IB programs when it submitted its financial recovery plan to the province last year.

The board also cut 20.5 full-time equivalent central office positions.

At a special committee of the whole meeting earlier in the evening, Mario Spagnuolo of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) urged trustees to vote down the budget, saying teachers need more frontline support, not less.

"The trustees should reject the proposed budget not as a rejection of senior administration but as a rejection of the provincial government cuts," he said.

Trustee Kim McKinley said that was why she voted no. 

"We do not truly have a structural deficit problem. What we have is a Ministry of Education funding problem," McKinley said.

"The budget deficits we are experiencing are far more about the lack of provincial funding … So for myself, I cannot agree to approve this budget that will impact our students in numerous ways while these funding gaps from the ministry continue to affect our budget substantially."

But Trustee Linda Qin, who also voted against the budget, said the board also needs to examine why enrolment in the  public schools — and thus the funding that is linked to it — is declining and work to attract more families back to the public system.

Declining enrolment 

Enrolment is expected to decline by around 950 students in 2025-26, with declines blamed in part on families opting out of all-day kindergarten, choosing to home school, choosing private schools or returning to countries of origin during the pandemic, according to the board's budget documents. 

"I know that we do a good job, but there might be a way to increase," she said.

"For example, listen to the parents, especially the parents who move their kids out of our board." 

After passing the budget by a vote of seven trustees in favour to two against, the board decided to send another letter to the province requesting more funding. 

CBC has reached out to a spokesperson for the Minister of Education.

A spokesperson for previous Minister of Education Jill Dunlop told CBC last year that Ontario had increased funding to the Greater Essex County District School Board by 20 per cent since 2018, despite relatively stable enrolment.

"Since coming into government, we have increased special education funding year over year to over $3.5 billion this school year across Ontario and supported the hiring of 9,000 additional education staff," Edyta McKay said.

"We will continue to support student achievement and get students back to basics on building foundational reading, writing and math skills that prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow."