ON taxpayers funding Toronto swimming pools?
Posted by Sandy on 11th April 2008
Reality check. How many school boards in Ontario, or even across Canada, have swimming pools in as many as 78 schools? My guess is that most boards have one or maybe two based on population statistics. Yet, some parents and students within the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) are apparently outraged that the board wants to close 23 of these pools – a relatively small number overall.
The community reaction and feeling of entitlement is actually quite breathtaking. For example, as Brian Gray writes in today’s Toronto Sun, the TDSB is going without 160 teachers just to pay for those pools. Not only that, the board uses up to one half of the $81 million the province hands over for ESL.
Yet, as Gray reports: “A committee of Toronto public school trustees recommended the full board vote to close 23 pools this spring and layoff 32 instructors despite a strong showing from parents and students imploring them not to take the plunge.”
That was in spite of the fact that: “Board chairman, John Campbell, said …the board is facing a $75-million deficit next year, a gap the empty pools will only help close.”
“Campbell [also] said during the meeting of the board’s planning and priority committee [that] the 23 decommissioned pools would save the board $4.6 million a year.”
Up to the late 1990’s Toronto was a “negative grant board” as far as education was concerned. It had a huge tax base and was allowed to keep every penny collected in education taxes. In other words, schools across the province were only as good as their municipality’s tax base. As a result, there were many areas of the province that were considered poor — particularly in Northern Ontario.
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