Trustee Brad Saunders would like to know why the Simcoe County District School Board is getting less funding than its similar-sized counterparts around the province.

Saunders raised the issue during a recent board budget meeting where trustees took a look at the amount funds they receive from the province through Grants for Students Needs.

“Certainly people have reasons why boards that are … the same size as ours are getting more of the grant money than we are for being roughly the same size,” Saunders said. “There must be reasons why.”

The SCDSB with 51,920 students receives $788.43 per pupil for a total of $40,935,521.

The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board with 50,254 students receives $875.98 per pupil for a total of $44,021,928.

“Maybe there is a reason they get $5 million more for the same population of students than we do,” Saunders said. “But without the reasons I can’t make judgment. I can only be suspicious.”

As board staff could only supply reasons why the SCDSB gets its amount, they did not know why and could not comment on the funding of other boards.

As a result, trustees have decided to invite a senior member of the Ministry of Education’s finance branch to a meeting in the fall to explain the factors involved in determining how much each board receives.  

While trustee Debra Edwards supported sending the invitation, she doesn’t think it will help much.

“I’ll support it, but the problem is the ministry hasn’t figured it out yet,” she said. “If they do come, it might not be in the short term because they are still working on it.”

Saunders said all he wants in an explanation.

“Having heard the explanation I might be very satisfied,” he said. “But if I don’t hear the explanation, or the explanation is not satisfactory, then all that is left for me, and for us, is a political solution. To go to our MPPs and say this is the situation, and it’s not fair, and it’s not an equitable distribution of taxpayer dollars.”