Not something to treat lightly

Once again, formulas that use averages to determine the costs of caring for our children are falling short – millions of dollars short.
For more than four years, the Near North District School Board has faced multi-million-dollar shortfalls because, as student enrolment plummets, so does the provincial money that is dispersed based on head count. It doesn’t matter whether there are long bus rides, more disabled students, less after-school support or more local secretaries and custodians – rural schools in the Parry Sound District, on paper, are exactly the same as any other school in the province.
Now, the Children’s Aid Society, an organization that cares for some of the province’s most desperate children, faces similar financial problems. Locally, the organization faces a $1.2 million shortfall. Across the province, more than 45 agencies face a combined $67 million shortfall.
The province has pledged to re-arrange the funding formula for schools. Clearly, there are problems with the formula used to pay for children’s aid services too.
Perhaps it’s time to do away with, or at least roll back, cookie-cutter solutions for local people. It’s important that the province regulate and fund childcare, but leaving it up to local school boards and children’s aid advocates, with a little more leeway to spend and request funding, area by area, based on local needs, might be a formula that actually works.
The plight of children’s aid is a scary one – especially considering that some of the service’s young clients face no other options, no other support systems.
Top-level administration changes and more sweeping, provincially-mandated decisions are not the solution. Allowing local school boards and children’s aid workers to put one hand on the wheel beside those of provincial bureaucrats and legislators just might be.

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