The Trillium: As Ford Government Takes Aim at School Boards, Data Show Funding Has Declined

A Toronto District School Board logo is seen on a sign in front of a high school in Toronto, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

The Toronto District School Board says its fat has already been trimmed.

Facing public outrage from the provincial government after multiple deficits, the TDSB says it’s faced years of real-dollar cuts and now has no choice but to consider closing pools and axing music programs to get back in the black.

Touting “historic” funding, the Ford government has accused the board of not doing enough to reduce spending while crying poor. Education Minister Paul Calandra plans to appoint an investigator to probe the TDSB’s finances, saying he’ll take over the board if he doesn’t like the result.

It’s but one battle in a war on school board budgets playing out across the province. After a pair of questionable trips by officials at two school boards, and deficits in others, the province has taken control of one and launched financial probes at three more, including the TDSB.

But with more than 40 per cent of school boards reporting deficits, education advocates say the problem is structural and can’t be fixed by tightening belts.

“If the province just funded the basics, we wouldn't be in a deficit,” Kristen Boyd, the school council chair at Roden Public School in Toronto, said on Thursday.

“This is a province-wide problem,” she said.

Using public data, The Trillium, along with several other analyses, found that provincial school board funding has declined over the Ford government’s time in office, when inflation is taken into account, exacerbating issues that were present even earlier.