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Hamilton Spectator
01-05-2025
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Balance your budget or be taken over, education minister warns Toronto school board
The Toronto public board needs to balance its budget or the province will step in and take over, Education Minister Paul Calandra threatened as trustees there push back against the $58 million in cuts they need to get out of the red. 'The Toronto District School Board has been running multi-year deficits. What they're being asked to do is find savings of less than two per cent on an over $3 billion budget,' Calandra said Thursday during daily question period, adding it could be 'finding savings by reducing the amount of superintendents that they have, by going after the $35 million of paid leave that they have.' The board is among five being targeted by the province for financial issues, and Calandra has previously announced he was sending in an investigator to look at Toronto's books. He accused the board of going after students by suggesting closing pools or firing itinerant music teachers instead of cutting administration. 'What they didn't say is, 'We're going to look at the record number of superintendents who are littered all over the Sunshine List.' They went from 3,000 to 8,000 people on the Sunshine List. 'We're not looking at that at the TDSB.' Why? Because the TDSB and the trustees are all about protecting themselves at the expense of students, at the expense of teachers.' To trustees, he added, 'let me be very clear. Do the right things for students; do the right things for teachers. If you don't, I'll take you over and I'll put the board back on track.' The government has touted its record level of education funding, which now sits at about $29 billion. School boards, however, say when inflation is factored in, per-student funding is down by about $1,500 at a time they are facing increasing costs — some of them mandatory, including employment insurance. Liberal MPP Jonathan Tsao (Don Valley North) said it is time the government 'commit to properly funding' the board. 'While I agree that fiscal responsibility matters, we also can't ignore the real challenges facing the students across the (Toronto public board) ... due to chronic underfunding,' Tsao said. 'Parents and teachers in my riding are deeply — deeply — concerned about the impact of the inaction of this government over the past seven years, especially on special education, IT programs, and opportunities in music, drama, sports and the arts. On top of that, aging infrastructure only adds to these pressures.' Trustees at the TDSB, among the largest school boards in North America, voted Wednesday at a special meeting to direct Chair Neethan Shan to 'continue to seek to engage the minister of education with urgency regarding the need for budget 2025 and education funding for 2025-26 to address the growing inflationary gap in per pupil education funding, special education funding, and other areas.' Some parents have urged the board to not cut staff or delay distributing Chromebooks to students, and instead pressure the government to provide additional funds. The board initially faced a $70.3 million deficit that was lowered to $58 million after the federal government eliminated the carbon tax. Almost $44 million of the shortfall is attributed to statutory Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance increases.
CBC
03-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
'A lot of fear, there's a lot of anxiety' for staff at Conestoga College as layoffs loom, union reps say
Social Sharing Support staff at Conestoga College have been told they can expect layoffs in the near future, causing a lot of fear and anxiety, union representatives say. Vikki Poirier, president of OPSEU Local 238 which represents support staff at the college, says they've been holding information sessions for employees knowing other colleges are cutting jobs. Colleges across the province say they have to lay off staff due to international student caps, which are cutting into their budgets. Conestoga College, for instance, saw their intake of international students cut by 50 per cent. On Friday, two OPSEU locals received notice from Conestoga College that it intended to reduce the number of support staff. On Monday, an internal memo went out to staff. "There's a lot of fear, there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty," Poirier said in an interview on CBC K-W's The Morning Edition with host Craig Norris. Now, they've now entered a confidential process with the college, and Poirier says they're doing their best to reassure and help workers. "We're educating members so they're aware of the process. There's misconceptions and misunderstandings. So I don't want to provide inaccurate or unrealistic expectations to them," she said. Leopold Koff is president of OPSEU Local 237 which represents faculty, counselors and librarians and which also received notice from the college of the intention to reduce staff. He says this is a time when colleges in Ontario should be investing in what they do, not cutting staff. "With the Trump tariff wars about to happen and underway, the colleges are in a unique position to be able to give the flexibility and diversity of training and retraining to make our economy and the people and the workers and the employers more flexible and resilient to these tariff wars," he said. "What the college is doing now is the reverse in terms of reduction of qualified, experienced faculty and administrators and not utilizing the hundreds of millions of dollars they have in cash reserves to maintain the stable basis of the colleges and especially Conestoga." Conestoga College's spokesperson Brenda Bereczki said the internal memo sent on Monday "stated that discussions with the support staff union over the coming weeks are confidential as outlined in the collective agreement." More information is expected to be shared in the next few weeks, she said. The news of layoffs comes as the college continues plans to expand in Stratford and Guelph and after the province's Sunshine List, released last week, showed Conestoga president John Tibbits was paid $640,005 in 2024, up from $494,716 in 2023. Poirier says she hopes the college remembers that the support staff her local represents are needed by Conestoga. They are the "foundation of the college that keeps the college going, keeps the programs going so the faculty can work and that the managers can manage them," she said. And Koff says the provincial government could do more to save jobs at the colleges. "I believe that this is an opportunity for the premier to step up and invest in our colleges," Koff said. "The colleges can turn and pivot. They can provide training and retraining to quote provide to the industry that and our businesses in Canada, Ontario, so that we can compete and be independent and flexible and compete with the world and act independent from the U.S. going forward. The colleges are the secret weapon we have. We should utilize it."
CBC
06-03-2025
- CBC
London school board lawyer Ali Chahbar latest exec on leave amid senior leadership upheaval
Social Sharing Another senior leader at the Thames Valley District School Board is on a leave of absence as the organization continues to review its operations following several high profile scandals that saw the province step in. Ali Chahbar, the TVDSB's in-house lawyer, was removed from the position earlier this week, CBC News learned Thursday. The leave was effective as of March 3, interim director of education Bill Tucker confirmed. Last week, board chair Beth Mai announced she was taking a leave from her position for health reasons. Over the course of the last six months, more than five other senior leaders have left the board, some on paid leaves of absence, others for new positions. Last fall, the province announced it was conducting a management audit of the TVDSB, as well as an investigation into its spending. It came after senior leaders spent $40,000 on a three-day planning retreat in Toronto, and ran a flower-arranging workshop for communications staff. Tucker was appointed interim director when Mark Fisher was put on leave in September. Others who have left include Associate Director Linda Nicholls, Katie Osborne, the superintendent of education, and Cheryl Weedmark, the director of communications. Tucker would not comment on the nature of Chahbar's leave, or if it was linked to the leadership and organizational review he is tasked with conducting. Chahbar's salary is listed on the Sunshine List as just over $199,000, plus benefits. He's been with the school board since 2018. The board is staring down a $16 million deficit, which rose when forecast enrollment dropped this year. CBC News did reach out to Chahbar Wednesday for comment, and this story will be updated if he responds. The school board has held a series of in-camera meetings in recent days, includine one that saw Mai step aside for several weeks.
