Five major Ontario school boards that have been under the direct supervision of the Ford government for a year or more have posted budget deficits despite the education minister blaming trustees for their financial turmoil.
In June 2025, Minister Paul Calandra announced he would appoint supervisors to the Toronto public, Toronto Catholic, Ottawa-Carleton and Dufferin-Peel school boards.
Those supervisors were sent in to replace trustees, who the education minister said had overseen a series of poor decisions.
“There are decisions that have been made in each of these boards, where they have chosen to avoid accountability,” Calandra said on June 27, 2025. “They’ve chosen not to bring their budgets into balance. Each board has a different challenge.”
But after a year under the management of government-appointed supervisors, all four boards have announced they are, once again, in the red.
The largest deficit of the four boards was the Toronto Catholic District School Board, where a $39.5 million hole was only $100,000 better than the 2025-26 deficit overseen by trustees.
In Toronto Catholic, the budget deficit was $15 million — a drop from the $74.5 million staff initially projected. Ottawa-Carleton came in with a “carefully planned transitional” deficit of $3.5 million.
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Out at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, the deficit was reported at $36.4 million — with the supervisor claiming $3.4 million in savings.
Ontario NDP MPP Chandra Pasma said the fact that none of the four boards taken over last year had balanced their budgets disproved the government’s claim that trustees had mismanaged them.
“It just shows how the minister’s narrative about why he imposed supervisors has always been false,” she said. “The supervisors have not eliminated the deficits even though many of them have made pretty significant cuts that will harm our kids.”
A spokesperson for Calandra’s office defended the supervisors, saying they were making progress.
“Since supervisors were appointed, nearly $150 million in savings has been identified through responsible financial decisions that do not impact student learning in classrooms,” they said, referring to the total of eight boards that are now under the control of Queen’s Park.
“Those savings ensure more education funding is focused back on student achievement and not decisions like international trips to buy artwork or attending sports games with public education dollars.”
The Thames Valley District School Board, which has been under the control of a supervisor for more than a year, posted a deficit of over $22 million.
“This was always doomed to fail,” Chandra said. “This was never about properly managing our schools.”
Since becoming education minister after the 2025 election, Calandra has focused on school board governance, linking elected trustees to issues of dysfunction, wasteful spending and poor overall financial management.
The Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board, which spent $145,000 on a trip to Italy and an art purchase, was the poster child of the government’s frustration.
The board, however, was never taken under the direct control of Queen’s Park, which did force trustees to repay the costs of their trip. Brant Haldimand Norfolk posted a balanced budget this year.
The other high-profile example of mispending for the government was Thames Valley, which put almost $40,000 toward a trip to the Toronto Blue Jays Hotel.
There are currently eight boards in Ontario under the control of a supervisor, including both major boards in Toronto and both major boards in Peel Region.
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