2024-25 Budget

“We’re pleased to endorse this budget for the 2024-25 school year. It reaffirms our commitment to build a culture of learning, well-being and belonging to inspire every learner. Investments in schools and classrooms emphasize our unwavering commitment to high-quality education, safe, welcoming, and inclusive environments for learning and working, and a focus on future resource stability and fiscal responsibility. This budget reflects input and effort from across the district. A record public response to Grand Erie’s Budget Survey, from staff and partners, and guidance from leadership and Trustees all shaped these investments.”

• Core Ed benefits benchmarks do not provide offsets to government-imposed increases to statutory benefits such as the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) and Employment Insurance (EI).
• Core Ed non-salary benchmarks (technology, textbooks, materials, etc.) also have not increased, and prices in these areas continue to rise because of inflation.
• The Safe and Clean Schools Supplement has also been discontinued, resulting in a reduction of $268,000.
• Capital funding has been renamed to the Building, Expanding and Renewing Schools (BERS).
• Third Party Funding has been renamed Funding for External Partners (FEP). A $1 per hour increase in education worker salary benchmarks in the 2024–25 school year over the 2023–24 school year. This reflects the ratified Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Ontario Council of Educational Workers (OCEW) and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) education workers’ central agreements. 
• A 1.25% increase for teacher and non-union salary benchmarks in the 2024–25 school year over the 2023–24 school year as a labour provision. 
• Employee Life and Health Trust benefits funding amounts are being adjusted for CUPE, OCEW, ETFO teachers and education workers to reflect the negotiated increases for the 2024–25 school year as part of their 2022-26 central terms.
• The Ministry has begun a five-year phase-in for 2021 Statistics Canada census data. 
• The Supports for Students Fund (SSF) is continuing for the 2024-25 school year and is expected to be in place for 2025-26 as well.
• The Ministry is providing a 2 percent cost update to the non-staff portion of the School Operations Allocation benchmark in the School Facilities Fund to assist school boards in managing the increases in commodity prices.

• Compliance with collective agreements
• Variance in enrolment projections
• Costs associated with employee absenteeism and challenges with staffing system with qualified replacement, labour shortage
• Impact of volatility on utility pricing and consumption
• Ministry overhaul of the funding policies

Grand Erie District School Board represents 27,900 students in 58 elementary and 14 secondary schools within the City of Brantford and the Counties of Brant, Haldimand, and Norfolk, as well as students from Six Nations of the Grand River and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

Enrolment is the primary factor for funding for Grand Erie. The funding is calculated based on the Average Daily Enrolment (ADE) of pupils enrolled on two Ministry-selected count dates: October and March.

The dashboard below provides a snapshot of the revenues, expenditures and accumulated surplus year over year.