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School board transportation funding should be based on actual need.  Needs-based funding is exactly what the proposed new transportation funding model would deliver.  It promises to be completely fair.
 
The discussion paper allocations for student transportation suggest a significant reduction in transportation funding for the Ottawa separate board in order to make the funding situation between the Ottawa boards more equitable.  Despite its fairness, the proposal has met with stiff political opposition from boards facing a reduction in funding.  Geraint Jones, one of our directors, phoned the office of his MPP, The Hon. Dalton McGuinty, in September 2004 to thank them for finally addressing the transportation funding inequity between Ottawa's public and separate school boards.  The person on the other end of the line appeared to have misunderstood the purpose of his call, because they proceeded to advise him not to worry as the whole thing was being reconsidered.  Clearly, the Premier's office had been feeling the heat from those who currently enjoy a considerably higher quality of bus service.
 
If the government backs down on full implementation of the new transportation funding model, which is based on actual need and is thus fair to all, they should rightly feel the heat from public board families who have endured lesser service for far too long.  If the proposed new level of funding for Ottawa's separate board is truly inadequate, then it is time to acknowledge that the funding level for Ottawa's public board, which has endured that same lower level of funding for seven years, is also inadequate.  In any case, Ottawa public board supporters should demand and accept nothing less than immediate and complete equity in funding.  Funding equity is long overdue.
 

	Enrollment (elementary and secondary)	Average home-to-school distance (Discussion paper)	Average weighted student km (Discussion paper)	Allocation for student transportation (2003-04)	Average transportation allocation per student (2003-04)	Allocation for student transportation (Discussion paper)	Average transportation allocation per student (Discussion paper)
OCDSB (public)	75,714	3.7 km	4.6 km	$24,272,139	$321	$23,124,599	$305
OCCSB (separate)	41,229	3.5 km	4.3 km	$20,682,144	$502	$11,393,851	$276

Focus on Inequity:

Student Transportation Funding in Ottawa English Language School Boards

 
Since 1998, Ottawa’s separate board has received a far higher level of funding for student transportation than its coterminous public board - on the order of 51 to 59% more per capita per year.  Throughout 2004, much has been made of that huge discrepancy at public school councils and in the media.  Indeed, it has been hard not to notice the superior level of bus service provided by the separate board.
 
In neighbourhoods where separate board school bus stops occur within a few doors of a student's home, public board students must often hike out to the nearest main road for pickup.  Superior bus service is often a factor in a parent's decision to choose the separate system over the public system.  Of course, that choice is not universally available to all (see FAQ Q&A #5).  The advantages of having that extra choice do not stop there.  Some home child care providers routinely turn down public school children because the less convenient bus stops often represent an inconvenience for them.  At the high school level, the separate school board pays for municipal bus passes for students (in grades 7 to 12), while public board parents must bear the $51.75 monthly or $497 annual expense themselves.  How did such a discrepancy in services arise?
 
1998 was a year of transition for education funding in Ontario.  The province moved to amalgamate most of the province's school boards in an attempt to achieve greater efficiencies, while at the same time changing the way those boards were funded.  Prior to 1998, school boards were funded through local taxes, supplemented to some extent with provincial grants to boards that lacked a rich assessment base.  While the grants served to alleviate the disadvantages of a less wealthy assessment base, boards having less assessment revenue still faced significant challenges in attempting to deliver a quality of education comparable to that delivered by boards with greater assessment revenue.
 
In a progressive step, the province addressed the inequities of the old funding model by centralizing education funding, replacing the old model with a new model based on enrollment and actual, documented needs.  For whatever reason, however, they failed to extend needs-based funding to student transportation.  Instead, transportation funding in the years since 1998 has been based on what boards were actually spending in 1998, not on any real measure of need.  The result was that boards that were running a lean and efficient transportation system were penalized for their efficiency, while boards that were delivering a higher level of service were rewarded with continuing funding for the higher level of service.
 
Prior to 1998, boards receiving less of their revenue in the form of provincial grants were more inclined to seek efficiencies allowing them to hold the line on taxes, as any service reduction could have a significant effect on taxes.  For boards having a greater dependence on grants, however, there was less incentive to seek efficiencies as these would have a less significant effect on taxes.  Transportation was one area where some boards, such as the Ottawa public board, sought efficiencies, while others, such as the Ottawa separate board, had little incentive to.  Such differences in approach led to serious inequities with the advent of the new funding model in 1998.  Those inequities continue to this day, perhaps nowhere in Ontario more significantly than in Ottawa.
 
In June 2004, the Ministry of Education finally moved toward a fair and equitable needs-based funding model for student transportation.  With the release of a discussion paper entitled "Equitable Allocation Through a New Funding Model for Student Transportation in Ontario", the Ministry proposed a new model that considers actual need by considering the actual home-to-school distance for each student as well as local weighting factors contributing to the cost of transportation.  While one could debate the sufficiency of the funding provided by the new model, it promises to finally provide fair and equitable funding to all boards based on their actual transportation needs.
 
In general, one would expect that smaller school boards would have greater transportation needs than larger boards serving the same geographic area (see Focus on Waste:  Student Transportation Funding in Ontario).  With fewer schools and more widely dispersed students, smaller boards could reasonably be expected to have larger catchment areas around their schools and longer average bus commutes than larger boards serving the same area.  Most Ontario separate school boards, being smaller than their coterminous public boards, could therefore be expected to have greater transporation needs.  These expectations hold true when one assumes an even distribution of students and an even distribution of schools.  That is not the situation in Ottawa.
 
In Ottawa, the reality is that public board schools are less well situated to serve their student populations than their separate board counterparts.  This is largely due to the fact that public board schools are older schools, built when the population distribution was different from today.  As the table below indicates, it is the Ottawa public board that in fact has greater transportation needs than its coterminous separate board.
 
 

 
 

	98-99 Actuals	99-00 Actuals	00-01 Actuals	01-02 Actuals	02-03 Actuals	03-04 Projections	03-04 Revised Estimates	04-05 Projections
Ottawa-Carleton Catholic DSB, $	486.79	488.46	489.40	486.95	511.78	537.34	534.86	543.59
Ottawa-Carleton DSB, $	306.24	311.22	311.08	311.50	324.13	353.94	346.88	359.25
Difference, $, OCCDSB - OCDSB	180.55	177.24	178.32	175.45	187.65	183.40	187.98	184.34
% increase required to bring OCDSB per capita transportation funding to OCCDSB level	59.0%	57.0%	57.3%	56.3%	57.9%	51.8%	54.2%	51.3%
% increase over previous year, OCCDSB	N/A	0.3%	0.2%	(0.5%)	5.1%	5.0%	4.5%	1.6%
% increase over previous year, OCDSB	N/A	1.6%	(0.0%)	0.1%	4.1%	9.2%	7.0%	3.6%