Province Acts to Restore Stability in Strait School Board

EDUCATION--Province Acts to Restore Stability in Strait School Board

Education Minister Jane Purves today announced a comprehensive plan to help restore stability to the Strait Regional School Board. The plan included legislative changes to strengthen accountability for all school boards.

The Strait Regional School Board will be the second in the province to adopt a new governance model. Ms. Purves said a chief executive officer will look after budgets, busing and buildings, while the elected board will concentrate solely on education.

She made the announcement today in a move to help restore stability and public confidence in that board after months of financial troubles.

"The financial mismanagement we've seen in this region has angered parents, students, taxpayers and government," said Ms. Purves. "Education dollars are meant to benefit kids in the classroom, and we're taking the necessary steps to strengthen accountability and protect those dollars for that purpose."

Last week, the minister announced that the model piloted in the Southwest since spring 2000 is working well and will be retained there with some changes. It will now be applied to the Strait Regional School Board, with one district board. The model gives continued responsibility for education to elected school board members. All other matters relating to finances, transportation and buildings will be the responsibility of the regional board unit headed by a chief executive officer who reports directly to the Department of Education.

"This has been an extremely trying time for elected board members and they have done their best to make sense of the financial puzzle," said Ms. Purves. "With this change they can now devote their full attention to providing quality education to students in that region, while the CEO concentrates on restoring financial stability."

Ken Meech was appointed CEO of the regional board. He has been the board's chief financial officer since December 2001. Phonse Gillis, the current acting superintendent, will be the director of education for the district board, assuming the leadership role for the management and administration of all educational aspects of the system.

Legislative changes to improve financial controls in all school boards were also introduced today. Those changes include:

• restricting board involvement in commercial enterprises outside of public education;
• expanding reports on salaries and expenses to all payments;
• ministerial approval and public release of all employment contracts and personal service contracts;
• expanding board auditing and reporting;
• applying a conflict of interest policy for school boards;
• setting board management compensation;
• ministerial authority to take over a board when financial mismanagement occurs; and
• setting board structure.

Last fall the Department of Education learned of serious financial mismanagement at the Strait Regional School Board. Since that time an interdepartmental report by the departments of Justice, Finance and Education was completed and a forensic audit was conducted. Information is now in the hands of the RCMP for further investigation.