Toronto schools will receive an additional $300 million in funding over the next two years for capital repairs at elementary and high schools across the city, the provincial government announced Monday.
Speaking at Harbord Collegiate Institute in Toronto’s Palmerston- Little Italy neighbourhood on Monday afternoon, Ontario’s education minister Mitzie Hunter announced that an extra $1.1 billion would be allocated to schools across the province for repairs and renewals. This funding, Hunter said, is in addition to the $1.6 billion the province already committed over the next two years.
She added that the Toronto District School Board will receive an additional $257 million, bringing the school board’s total budget for capital repairs up to $579 million. The Toronto Catholic District School Board will see an additional $40 million for a total of $107 million.
Schools will be able to use the funds to repair roofs, update HVAC units, and modernize electrical and plumbing systems.
The money can also be used for new ceilings, flooring, asphalt and playing fields.
“This money is urgently needed to help address school boards’ growing renewal and repair backlog. There are roughly 4,900 schools in Ontario. Roughly half of these are more than 40 years old,” Hunter told reporters Monday.
“A school with a long list of repairs, antiquated components or inefficient systems, is not serving those students at a level they deserve. That is why we are flowing funding right away so that over the summer, school boards can get to work right away on their list of priorities and deliver the most important upgrades in time for September.”
The new funding comes after the Auditor General of Ontario recommended in 2015 that the province increase investment in school renewal to 2.5 per cent of the schools’ replacement value and allocate two-thirds of school infrastructure investment to renewal instead of new construction.
