Ontario school boards to receive $309M over 2 years

Last Updated: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 | 3:24 PM ET

CBC News

Ontario school boards will receive an additional $309 million in funding over the next two school years, the premier said Tuesday, but questions remain over long-term changes for the province's school funding formula.  

Speaking to reporters at the Roberta Bondar Public School in Brampton, Dalton McGuinty said the boards will receive $182 million for the coming school year and an additional $127 million in 2008-09.

The new funding, which is on top of a $781-million boost announced in March, includes $41 million to hire 300 more vice-principals in large schools. Another $52 million will be spent to ensure funding for support workers, secretaries and supply teachers better reflects actual costs

Money is also available for such areas as education assistants, primary teachers and school bus operations.

But critics of the government's eduction policies say it's irresponsible for the province to announce millions of dollars in funding without an updated overall plan. They said Ontario's funding formula is outdated because it does not reflect increases in hydro costs, staff salaries and building repairs.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said there will be another review of the funding formula, but the results of it won't be known for another three years.

"It's not that we're not going to continue to transform the funding formula," Wynne said Tuesday. "It's just that we want to do an evaluation by 2010 to see if we're on the right track."

McGuinty said the formula — the blueprint used to calculate how much money schools receive — is "forever a work in progress.

"We have already made numerous improvements to it and we believe that the cumulative impact of those changes already made, together with all those to be made between now and 2010, should be formally reviewed at that time," he said.

In the meantime, Wynne said the new funding will help ease some of the pressure boards face in trying to balance their budgets.

Wynne received a high-profile endorsement on Tuesday from the head of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario over the education minister's Don Valley West riding rival, provincial Conservative Leader John Tory.

Emily Noble said she's encouraging her 70,000 members to vote for people who support public education, and suggested Tory isn't "on the right track."