School board short $1 million in cash

News Release
RRDSB

The extra $600M injected into the Ontario education system in the recently released provincial budget will seriously impact the Rainy River District School Board and other Northern Boards. In actual fact, the Rainy River District School Board is faced with a funding loss of $1M, due to the Ministry’s allocation of funding from specific grant structures which will be transferred to the School Foundation Grant and the Salary Benchmark Grant.
The Declining Enrollment Grant has been slashed and the Remote and Rural Grant, Distant Schools Grant and the Learning Opportunities Grant have been realigned. On top of that, the grant for utilities was increased by 2% in the face of actual increases of 12-15%, resulting in a total budget shortfall of $1M.
Rainy River District School Board Trustees are interested in where the $600M has been allocated.
The loss of dollars coupled with the timing of the funding release is devastating. Staffing costs represent 76% of our budget and with contractual commitments and necessary planning for the fall have made this million dollar revenue loss a tough blow. When we have to cut $1M from approximately one quarter of our budget, it makes for some hard decisions.
“We will prioritize our options, keeping in mind the overall welfare of our students”, said Chair Ron McAlister.
“When the additional dollars were announced for education, we were optimistic that we would get a small portion, or at least be able to maintain the status quo. It comes as a shock to have such a large reduction for a small school board”, said Atikokan Trustee, Judy Eluik.
Trustee Gord McBride said, “the cuts will negatively impact about 23 Northern Boards and School Authorities and these communities are already suffering economically, caused by multi-job losses and business downturn. Our Board should request that the Ministry review these commitments to Northern Boards so we have, at the very least, the same number of dollars we have in the current fiscal year. Only about 5% of public school students live in northern communities so we have to stand up and be counted.”