The Algoma District School Board drew from its reserves to balance its 2025-26 budget approved by trustees earlier this week.
The final ADSB 2025-26 budget figure is $206,992,779.
“We drew around $600,000 from our accumulated surplus and that represented about 0.3 per cent of our total budget to cover current programs,” said Joe Santa Maria, ADSB associate director of corporate services and operations, speaking to reporters after Tuesday’s meeting.
Those programs include:
- supports for special education and mental health programming
- capital improvements in schools
- supports for multilingual language learners
- Indigenous graduation coach resources
- summer learning programs
Redistribution of board funds and new Ministry of Education funding will lead to enhancement of board programming in several areas in 2025-26, including:
- promotion of skilled trades classes
- specialty programs such as basketball, football, and soccer academies
- special education programming and counsellor resources
- upgrades to servers, devices and cybersecurity software
- capital upgrades to schools
The cost of bus transportation for students was a source of concern for the ADSB when it passed its 2024-25 budget.
The board stated last spring that despite transition funding it faced a deficit that could climb as high as $750,000 without a change in the province’s grant structure for student transportation.
That concern has been partially eased with the 2025-26 budget, Santa Maria said.
“There were some changes in the funding formula so I credit the Ministry for listening to many school boards and coming to the table. We're still going to be short in transportation but they've really closed the gap on some of that funding. We're still analyzing the numbers as we speak and we’ll probably be doing more of that over the summer. As we get into the summer we'll know more,” Santa Maria said.
ADSB Operations and Budget Committee members also had to work quicker than usual in finalizing the 2025-26 budget because this spring’s Ontario budget was introduced in May - two months later than usual - due to the snap calling of a provincial election in February.
Roughly $15 million in ADSB capital projects are going ahead in 2025-26, notably the construction of Three Rivers JK-12 School in Blind River and two projects at HM Robbins Public School, including an addition of daycare spaces and renovations to classrooms.
Santa Maria said ADSB is so far “staffing conservatively” for 2025-26 due to equally conservative enrolment numbers.
“We're probably right now just more in a plateau, seeing the same type of enrolment situation that we had in the current year. Not an increase like we've had in the last three years. It’s levelling off a bit,” Santa Maria told SooToday.
He expects enrolment - and government funding for students - to go up over the summer.
“At this point every year, we're going to see a small decrease in enrolment. But as families register their youngest children in JK and SK over the summer, and as they get more interested in school coming into September, then that enrolment will usually become what it needs to be.”