Please Click Here to find recent news, events and information from CUPE Ontario.
New study shows funding for EAs short $189M McGuinty’s band-aid fix short-changes special needs children
TORONTO, Ont. Oct. 2/07 Ontario’s faulty school funding formula resulted in an estimated $189 million funding shortfall for Educational Assistants (EAs) for the 2006-2007 year, according to a new study by economist Hugh Mackenzie. Furthermore, the report demonstrates that $20 million in funds announced by the McGuinty government this past August for improvements in salary benchmarks has had virtually no impact on the layoffs of Educational Assistants sweeping boards across the province.
While the government claimed that its August funding increased salary benchmarks by 22 per cent, the reality is that EA funding increased by only 2.4 per cent, says Mackenzie, who conducted the study for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, that represents educational support staff in schools. To back up its claim, the government would have needed to invest between $143 million to $183 million, not $20 million, to fix the problem it said it was fixing. {more}
