Trustees with the Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) have approved the operating budget for the 2025-26 school year with a deficit of $988,924.
The operating budget has been set at $545-million. Trustees Linda Qin and Kim McKinley were opposed, and Cathy Cooke was not present Tuesday night.
Trustees heard a number of areas identified as key risks to the 2025-26 budget. One of those risks was declining student enrolment.
The board said it was approved for the provincial 2025-26 Declining Enrollment Grant, and the budget accounts for that $4-million in one-time revenue.
The projected enrolment for the 2025-26 school year is 23,541 elementary students, 11,076 secondary and 82 international students.
This represents approximately 954 fewer students than the previous school year.
The board said it has experienced ministry funding shortfalls in special education, aging infrastructure, and student transportation.
Trustee McKinley said she couldn't put her support behind the budget.
"We do not truly have a structural deficit problem, what we have is a Ministry of Education funding problem," McKinley said.
Trustee Ron LeClair put the blame of the deficit on the provincial government.
"What we have is not a spending problem in our board, or any other board across the province for that matter, what we have is an inadequate funding model that leaves our board, and every other board across the province at risk for decisions that are made at tables that we don't even have a seat at," LeClair said.
Board chair Gale Hatfield said despite it being a challenging budget, she was proud of the work done by board staff.
"The budget process has always been difficult for as long as I've been a trustee because there are huge gaps in the funding that we have no control over, so that makes it always very difficult, and we are committed to doing the best we can for students and I think that this budget accomplished that," Hatfield said.
The board approved sending their annual letter to the ministry outlining their frustrations.
Something local president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, Mario Spagnuolo, said wasn't enough.
"A letter is just not going to do, they send letters to government every year about the funding formula and again we have not had a change to the funding formula," said Spagnuolo.
The budget still needs approval from the education minister.
The board is in a multi-year financial recovery plan, and is required by the ministry to have balanced books by the 2026-27 school year.
-With files from CTV Windsor's Robert Lothian