Randy Thoms

The Rainy River District School Board says improving the track at Fort Frances High School is still on its radar.

However, other school renewal projects will prevent any work from taking place this year.

A request to upgrade the track was made two years ago by the one of the school’s track coach, John Dutton.

A subsequent study by the school board identified the installation of a rubberized track would be as much as $1.5 million.

Executive Officer of Facilities Services Travis Enge says it is a great project, but the board needs to first complete several other high-cost projects.

“We’re finishing off Rainy River (K-12 school). We’ve got to get Nesto Falls (elementary school) installed, not to mention right next to this running track is a giant high school that we’re going to renew over the next three to four years,” says Enge.

Enge does not rule out the project being considered in a subsequent year.

“This is something very unique. I’ve never built one of these before. I want to make sure that we do it right when we do it and get a good base and get it constructed properly so that three or four years after construction, we’re not looking at it all cracked up because the process or whatever wasn’t done right.”

Enge says they did study the possibility of redoing the gravel, and some improvements were made.

He admits a rubberized surface is safer and consistent with regional competition standards.

The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario is painting a picture of the subsidized housing needs in the province.

It estimates that over one million households needed some form of support last year.

Only about 30 percent received it, and of those, almost 86,000 households continued to face unaffordable housing costs.

The province is planning to increase spending by 3 per cent next year, increasing from $2.0 billion in 2024-25 to $2.2 billion in 2027-28.

But the FAO says that with inflation, the total amount will be similar to what was spent 20 years ago.

The report also finds that municipalities are bearing much of the cost of subsidizing housing.

The FAO says municipalities, on average, contributed 56.8% of total funding between 2004 and 2025.

The provincial government provided 13.3% of funding, while the federal government’s share was 29.9% during the same period.

The FAO adds that the municipal share increased between 2004 and 2021 as federal and provincial programs expired.

It started to decline with the implementation of a new National Housing Strategy that came into effect in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

The FAO also projects that the number of Ontario households requiring some form of subsidized housing support will increase 8.3 per cent by 2028.