BROCKVILLE – Eastern Ontario MPP Steve Clark is urging the Upper Canada District School Board to have a third-party review of the board’s budget for the upcoming school year.
In an open letter to UCDSB chairman John McAllister, Clark says he’s “concerned about the impact” the recently approved budget “will have on students in the classroom.” Clark is concerned considering the UCDSB is getting nearly $1 million more in transfers from the province – a total of $342 million from the Ontario government.
The budget was passed in June with $11.7 million in cuts for the 2019-2020 school year, including 160 full-time equivalent positions in various areas of the school board.
Clark, whose Leeds-Grenville riding is home to the UCDSB head office, urged McAllister to apply for the Ontario government’s Audit and Accountability Fund, which gives money to school boards to do a line-by-line review of operations and service delivery.
McAllister told Postmedia that he will address the issue and source out details of the audit fund “early next week.”
You can read the open letter by clicking here (opens PDF).