The province should review an outdated funding formula that is hurting Ontario schools, says a Toronto school board trustee.

"The school boards across Ontario are faced with challenges now to cut very, very vital services from their systems in order to work with a funding formula that I think everyone agrees is out of whack with reality," said Josh Matlow.

Matlow has been working with a group of fellow trustees from across the province to press the Liberal government to fulfill a 2003 election promise to fix the funding formula that decides how much money is distributed to individual school boards.

Matlow said the government has not invested the millions of dollars needed to update the base amounts in the formula, nor has it adjusted the formula for inflation.

Premier Dalton McGuinty says his government has boosted education spending by $2.7 billion since taking office, and increased the number teachers, support staff and principals.

But Matlow called on the government to perform a formal review of the funding formula.

He is also asking the government to provide one-time grants to help school boards with immediate problems posed by funding shortfalls and a provincial law that requires school boards to balance their budgets.

Last Wednesday, the Liberals gave school boards extra time to balance their budgets for this year so a fact-finding team could look at ways to help them with their financial plans.

McGuinty agreed the school funding formula has to be reviewed, but he wouldn't say when that would happen and he did not respond to the request for transitional funding.

Matlow ran for the Liberals in a provincial byelection against Ernie Eves in 2002, according to his personal website.