By Pepper Parr
June 17th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
An Infograph is a graph that conveys information in a more effective visual manner.
The Halton District School Board released an infograph that showed how poorly the Region does in terms of provincial grants for education.
No one at the Board of Education can say quite why the Region gets less on a per student basis than others – the fact is Halton, which is Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Halton Hills get less.
The model used for school bus funding has not changed since 1998 which is what has led to the near crisis is recruiting bus drivers. The boards have not been able to pay the drivers a decent rate.
The funding shortfall impacts what the Board does at many levels – Special Education suffers; the Halton Board has to find $20 million to cover Special Education needs which are higher than the average student.
The needs are very real, unfortunately the local school boards are totally dependent on the province for a significant part of the funds needed to operate the schools.
Trustees and the Board administrations work to determine where the needed funds are going to come from at a time when we now have a provincial government that thinks aloud in terms of “efficiencies” and talks in terms of reducing spending by as much as 4% (at least that is what the public heard during the recent provincial election). Education and health are two of the biggest spending items in the provincial budget.
Just how provincial funding for school boards works isn’t fully understood by the public. Property taxes and development fees cover just a portion of the cost.
Because the funds come from the provincial government the Boards and trustees would like to see pressure put on the newly elected members of the provincial legislature. For Burlington this means appealing to Jane McKenna who has been returned to the Legislature. McKenna was first elected to Queen’s Park in 2011, lost to Eleanor McMahon in 2014 and defeated McMahon in the election held earlier this month.
During the election debates it was clear that McKenna was going to follow the path set out by Doug Ford who talks in terms of getting better value for the dollars spent. Burlington parents with children in local schools are the people who know where efficiencies exist.
Given that those same parents elected the government we have now – they have to live with the consequences of the election.
There are two problems with those conclusions. A majority of those who voted didn’t choose this government and just 58% of those with the right to vote bothered to troop out to the polls on election day.
Salt with Pepper is the musing, observations and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette.
First a thought to throw out there, maybe Halton doesn’t receive the same funding because it’s been noted by the Ministry that Halton a) Has a huge surplus how else could they afford a nicer building? b) It’s been noted that there is a unnecessary amount of Superintendents look at other Boards numbers. c). Money wasted in the past?
For the first time Lynn Crosby I will agree with you I would like to see 1 school system. The system is broken and it needs to be repaired quickly for the sake of our kids!
The above chart by the Halton District School Board states:
TRANSPORTATION FUNDING – “The transportation model has not changed since 1998 and has not been adjusted for growing school boards like the HDSB.”
“The Ontario Ministry of Education needs to revise the funding model to ensure school boards have the funds to continue to provide transportation for students.”
“The out-of-date funding model has contributed to the current financial pressure, school bus driver shortages and driver recruitment difficulties.”
Today I decided to audit the above claims this morning by standing on the corner of Guelph Line and Coventry and counting the number of school busses and the number of student passengers from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM this morning (Tuesday June 19th. My observations, findings and calculations are below.
There appears to be no shortage of the requirement for buses or drivers but rather there is a very a poorly managed and expensive program of transportation waste with a utilization maximum rate of a high of 25% to a low of 8.0%.
The shortage is in effective planning and control by the Halton District School Board and Trustees who obviously do not require more funding but rather more planning and less bureaucracy and complaining.
My Audit Findings:
No. Bus type & seats Students Calculations
1 Short – 8 to 10 2
2 Long – 40 to 44 3
3 Long – 40 to 44 4
4 Short – 8 to 10 1
5 Long – 40 to 44 2
6 Long – 40 to 44 2
7 Long – 40 to 44 6
8 Short – 8 to 10 1
9 Long – 40 to 44 7
10 Long – 40 to 44 5
11 Short – 8 to 10 0
12 Short – 8 to 10 1
13 Short – 8 to 10 10
14 Short – 8 to 10 1
15 Short – 8 to 10 0
16 Long – 40 to 44 3
17 Long – 40 to 44 0
18 Short – 8 to 10 2
Totals 18 buses
50 student passengers
Total Seats on short buses 72 to 90 18 on short buses Utilization 20 % to 25%
Total Seats on Long buses 360 to 396 32 on long buses Utilization 8.0 % to 8.9%
Great forensics audit George!
The whole Board needs this kind of accounting audit.
Maybe someone out there who looked at the buses during the PAR – she knows who she is, but I won’t ID her here – can chime in as to what she learned and how the busing office reports its finances, efficiency and effectiveness to itself due to the administrative setup with the Board.
And as far as popular vote goes – as pointed out by Brian – that’s what it is – a system of vote splitting and first past the post. We will see it big time come the local Council elections in October.
Didn’t we decide some time ago against proportional representation or something that gives seats based on votes received?
And voter turnout, as also pointed out by Brian, was the highest in almost 20 years, but regardless, as the old saying goes, people get the government they deserve.
My comments below are in support of the “School Boards in Halton are getting far less than comparable boards in the province – that shortfall is felt in the classrooms your children attend.
Citizens of Halton should be asking why and I wonder if the reasons can be explained below
:
1. “The model for school bus funding has not changed since 1998”
a. Could this be because of excessive bussing made necessary by the decisions of the Halton District School Board (HDSB) and Trustees?
b. Could the excessive bussing be because of the fabricated school catchment areas to provide a shortage of pupils to one high school, say Lester B. Pearson, to provide an excess in another high school, say Frank J. Hayden high school?
c. Could the plan to bus all the students of the new development of housing on the northwest corner of highway 5 and Walkers Line to MM Robinson high school rather than let them walk the three (3) blocks to their local high school Frank J. Hayden?
d. Could the excessive bussing be due to the fact most school buses capable of carrying 40 students typically carry only 5 or 6 students throughout Burlington?
Why should school bus funding increase? Why not consider school catchment areas realignment and correct planning improvements to reduce bussing requirements?
2. “The shortage of funding impacts what the Board does at many levels – Special Education suffers”. Robert Bateman has done a marvellous job in managing Special Education for years with appropriate facilities and equipment plus staff and volunteers.
a. Does the closing of Robert Bateman high school pay for the enormous expenditures of the rebuilding and bussing of children to Nelson high school or to Frank J. Hayden up on highway 5?
3. “The needs are very real, unfortunately the local school boards are totally dependent on the province for a significant part of the funds needed to operate the schools.”
a. The current funding is the second highest expenditure in the province just after health care and yet the article indicates funding is insufficient. Why doesn’t the HDSB and Trustees review their current budget for costs that may be eliminated or reduced?
b. Could the following costs plus many others to the taxpayer through the HDSB and Trustees be considered for reduction and/or elimination:
i. The costs of the extra HDSB Staff added over the past two years when high schools and responsibilities (Lester B Pearson and Robert Bateman) have been or will be eliminated?
ii. The costs of an extra HDSB Superintendent to assist with the closure of Lester B Pearson high school?
iii. The costs of first considering, planning with architectural designs then when it became apparent to the HDSB Director of Education it was currently politically unwise to the citizens of Burlington to consider building and thus delaying the construction of a new and not necessary HDSB office that was quoted as required in the HDSB minutes as required not for space but a nicer facility.
4. “Because the funds come from the provincial government the Boards and Trustees would like to see pressure put on the newly elected members of the provincial legislature.”
The McGuinty / Wynne Liberal government has been in power for some 15 years and were recently dismissed of party status due to their actions and amongst the voters reasons was the excessive and wasteful spending increasing the provincial debt to that of an excessively indebted sub-sovereign land.
a. Why would the voters consider requesting more tax dollars from a government that was elected to reduce costs?
b. Why would the electorate request “Fair and Transparent funding for the Halton District School Board” when the HDSB and Trustees have yet to review their own budget and costs for reductions and efficiencies?
c. Why would the people and elected MPPs not “… follow the path set out by Doug Ford who talks in terms of getting better value for the dollars spent …”?
5. “Burlington parents with children in local schools are the people who know where efficiencies exist”.
a. Burlington parents do know where the efficiencies exist but their knowledge and requests were ignored by:
i. The HDSB Director of Education, The HDSB Administration, The HDSB Trustees
ii. The Province of Ontario in the Administrative Review
iii. Our local MPP Ms. Eleanor McMahon who has been recently replaced.
6. The last statement in the above article warrants a response: “A majority of those who voted didn’t choose this government and just 58% of those with the right to vote to vote bothered to troop out to the polls on election day.”
This is a true statement, but it is the way and the method this municipality, region, province, country and many other democratic areas and citizens have performed their choice of representation for many, many years.
Unless there are only 2 parties running, the odds of any party getting a majority are very slim. Kathleen Wynne won in 2014 despite 61% of the people not voting for her. Trudeau is currently running the Country, despite 60.5 percent of the electorate not voting for him.
Under a ridings-based system like we have, unless you’re prepared to only allow 2 parties to run, you’ll almost never have a majority, so you might as well not bellyache about the results unless you plan to apply it across the board to Trudeau and everyone else. Plurality is the best you’re going to get in this system, which even your Federal Liberals don’t want to change. It’s a bit disingenuous to highlight in RED that 57.72 percent of voters didn’t vote for McKenna, when I don’t recall you saying in RED that 56.59 percent of voters didn’t vote for McMahon in 2014…
Also, the 58% voter turnout that you quoted, inferring that not many people bothered to vote, is the highest turnout since 1999. Neither McGuinty or Wynne had that many people turn out for an election.
It’s true the majority didn’t vote for this government; it’s also true the previous government had 15 years to do something about the way school boards are funded. There is so much wrong it’s difficult to put it in a graphic or a comment or even an article.
But the short summary is that it really doesn’t make sense that Halton should be receiving less funding than almost everyone else, especially as Halton – thanks to Milton and North Oakville – is one of the few growing boards in Ontario.
I would like to see one school system (not two) and the elimination of individual school boards studied. Yes, I know I’m dreaming. But the system is broken and needs to be severely streamlined.
Perhaps the liberals felt Burlington has too much white privilege and doesn’t deserve the money.