The Ontario government wants to know how funding for schools can be made fairer, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne has announced.

Wynne said Tuesday that by the time the school boards set their budgets for 2007-08, the province will have changed the method it uses to decide how much money each school board should get.

"We've changed the funding formula every year and I fully expect we will change it next year," Wynne said.

But before the province makes those changes, Wynne said she wants to hear from school boards, teachers unions and parent groups about how the province's funding formula is falling short.

She hopes to have that public input by next month.

School boards and other critics have argued that the province's current formula does not accurately calculate how much funding each school board needs, and forced many boards to cut programs and raid emergency reserves in order to balance their budgets this past year.

School boards are required by provincial law to balance their budgets.

Wynne acknowledged that the formula may not serve the needs of all school boards.

"Circumstances change, demographics change — so I want to know what they perceive the pressures to be," she said.

Funding should cover salary costs: trustee

Lynn Graham, chair of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, said she was pleased to hear that announcement.

"Certainly our board will be providing input," she added.

She said the board has held many discussion in the past about possible improvements to the funding formula.

Graham said some ideas her board will present to the government include:

  • Ensuring funding covers the full cost of staff salaries and benefits, which Graham said they currently do not do.
  • Making special education funding proportional to the number of special education students in a given school district, to account for increases in special education enrolment.
  • Creating a transportation formula so boards with similar needs get the same amount of money for school buses and passes. Graham said right now, transportation funding remains proportional to the funding each board had in 1998.

The board spent Tuesday evening discussing possible target areas for cuts to balance the 2007-08 budget, as Graham said no changes had yet been made to the funding formula.

With files from the Canadian Press