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The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) expects to run a $3.5-million deficit in the upcoming school year, according to its first budget since the Ontario government appointed a supervisor to balance the board’s books.
The $1.26-billion spending plan would typically have been debated by trustees over several weeks of meetings.
But with trustees sidelined since June 2025, the board’s finances were instead made public at an audit committee meeting Thursday, just 12 days before Ontario’s school boards are required to submit their budgets to the province.
Stacey Kay, who became the board’s director of education last November and is now in the newly created position of CEO, said the board is “exceptionally close” to achieving its target of a balanced budget, but pointed to declining enrolment as a leading reason for the deficit.
Falling enrolment
The OCDSB projects 74,846 students will attend its elementary and secondary schools in the 2026-27 school year. That’s 1,824 fewer students than a year ago when trustees approved their last budget.
Supervisor Robert Plamondon has previously accused the board of using flawed projections and overestimating student enrolment. Students have also been migrating to the city’s three other boards.
Because each student represents $14,584 in core government funding for the OCDSB, the board expects a $8.5-million drop in that revenue.
But Kay said it the board managed to avoid what could have been a $18.5-million deficit by “streamlining central operations.”
In addition to shrinking certain departments and executive costs, the board will also look at reducing its spending on AI and other technological devices in favour of traditional resources such as textbooks and paper.
Meanwhile, it says it’s adding 21 full-time educational assistants.
Sidelined trustee blasts supervisor
This is the first budget since the education minister appointed Plamondon to oversee the board in June 2025, blaming financial mismanagement that saw consecutive deficits and drained reserves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The board’s net accumulated deficit will climb to $12.5 million next year, according to Thursday’s budget presentation.
The OCDSB declined an interview request with Plamondon. The board has consistently told CBC News that speaking with the media is not within the supervisor’s mandate.
In November, Plamondon said he was launching a line-by-line review of all board spending to achieve a balanced budget. But in January, he warned that may take more than a year to achieve.
Donna Blackburn, one of the trustees sidelined when the board was placed under supervision, attended the meeting from the public gallery. She said the latest deficit shows the board’s financial problems were not because of trustees, but because of provincial underfunding.
Blackburn also pointed to the financial investigation by PricewaterHouse Coopers. The firm said it “did not find any examples of reckless or deliberate wrongdoing, lack of financial oversight or governance or actions resulting in potential reputational damage.”
“Clearly [Plamondon] cannot balance the budget. Clearly it’s not an issue of financial mismanagement. And by the way, the auditors didn’t find any financial mismanagement,” Blackburn said.
“So the notion that the trustees here in Ottawa were responsible for some big financial mismanagement, that was a diversion on the part of the government.”
Blackburn and the other trustees passed a balanced budget in June 2025, but partway through the school year and after the supervisor took over, board staff said the OCDSB was actually expecting to face a shortfall of more than $11 million.
‘Ludicrous’ public consultation
Jamieson Dyer, president of the Ottawa Carleton Elementary Occasional Teachers’ Association, said Thursday was the first time he’d seen the budget numbers, and said transparency has suffered under Plamondon’s supervision.
“The difference between having 12 trustees, each getting dozens of emails from employees and families to influence and to ask questions, compared to this process where there are no questions except for the three people who are on the audit committee, it’s really a stark difference,” he said.
Chandra Pasma, the NDP MPP for Ottawa West Nepean and the party’s education critic, also attended the meeting and was critical of what she sees as as a lack of consultation with parents.
She noted that a survey inviting comments about the budget garnered just 299 responses, fewer than half of them from parents.
“We have we have tens of thousands of kids in the OCDSB. Like, it’s ludicrous to think that that represented adequate public consultation,” Pasma said.