Ottawa's public school board facing $9 million deficit for 2022-23 school year

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. (Tyler Fleming / CTV News Ottawa)

Ottawa's public school board is looking to dip into reserves to eliminate a $9 million deficit in its 2022-23 budget.

The Ottawa Carleton District School Board will begin debate and hear from the public on the proposed $1 billion operating budget for the next school year Tuesday evening.

"For 2022-2023, the staff-recommended budget is mainly focused on maintaining supports for students while continuing to manage the additional costs of measures designed to maintain safe and healthy schools and working environments," staff said in the budget report.

Seventy-five new elementary and secondary school staffing positions will be added to the board to cover increased enrolment and refinements to staffing for special needs students. The draft budget includes an additional $4.5 million for Special Education, an extra $2.4 million for School Operations to cover increased utility and service costs and $1.1 million for Mental Health and Wellbeing.

Staff say the board is anticipating a projected revenue increase of $50 million next school year, due to anticipated higher enrolment, increases to help with inflationary pressures and improved Extended Day Program revenues.

To balance the budget, staff recommend using $9 million from its $31.7 million accumulated surplus.

OCDSB Chief Financial Officer Mike Carson told a special board meeting last week it's recommending a proposed deficit to make new investments to support students and cover required cost pressures.

"We believe that this is a year of transition," Carson said about the proposed deficit spending. "It is a year that we come out of COVID and begin to address the fallout of the pandemic and the changes that the city of Ottawa and our families have experienced that we wanted as much as possible to provide as much stability for families and staff as we could."

Carson says $8.3 million of the projected deficit will accommodate "a shortfall" in special education funding for the school year. Transportation funding is also facing a shortfall next year.

School boards are allowed to use its accumulated surplus to cover a deficit that's one per cent of the total budget.

This would be the third time in four school years that the board has used reserves to balance its books. The OCDSB posted a $14 million deficit in the 2021-22 school year.

The school board is projecting an additional 1,187 students will enrol in elementary and secondary schools in 2022-23.

Trustees will approve the 2022-23 budget later this month.