This service assists boards with meaningful and timely financial analysis required for lobbying and creating public awareness on education finance issues. The development of the Finance Database in conjunction with analyses provided by the Finance Technical Committee allows member boards and OPSBA’s president to provide accurate, factual and current information on funding issues.

In addition to the priorities noted earlier under Education Funding, ongoing initiatives include:

• Expansion of the finance data base to add new data, hotlinks to information and user groups, thereby increasing province-wide analytical capability and improving individual board access. Data has been made available for a period spanning 1993 through 2007/08.  Detailed financial data by school board allows for board by board comparisons as well as provincial analysis including by region, by size and total province. Non-financial elements include EQAO testing information and Primary Class Size data which have been migrated from their original format to OPSBA’s EdFinet database

• Participation in all provincial government grant related consultations announced with the release of the 2008/2009 Grants with a focus on support for local Board governance and financial flexibility
• Continue to maintain regular contacts and work collaboratively on issues of joint concern with other key organizations including OCSTA, ACEPO, AFOCSC, CODE, COSBO, OASBO, OSTA-AECO, and AMO.  This includes monitoring financial data provided by other organizations and agencies and undertaking financial analyses on issues affecting education to support positions to be taken by OPSBA

• Continue to work in partnership with COSBO and CODE to present common positions and costing data
• Strengthen relationships with the Ministries of Education and Finance through continuing to initiate regular contact with key ministry staff and publicly acknowledging and supporting ministry positions that advance quality education

• Monitor issues affecting OMERS including contribution changes, proposed benefit changes and fund stability for possible financial impact on Boards
• Work closely with OCSTA regarding OPSBA-OCSTA representation on the OMERS Sponsors Corporation and Administrative Corporation.

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