Ontario focusing province-wide school board audits on ‘frivolous’ trip spending

The Ford government is shifting the focus of bi-annual audits it plans to impose on school boards across the province to include a specific look at the discretionary spending of senior figures like trustees after a number of controversial trips raised the ire of the premier.

For weeks, school boards have been under intense scrutiny for charging the costs of overseas trips and an excursion to a Toronto Blue Jays to taxpayers.

In the Brantford area, trustees expensed $45,000 on a trip to Italy where they spent roughly $100,000 on artwork. A London, Ont., school board spent roughly $40,000 on a retreat to the Blue Jays stadium hotel and another southwestern Ontario board spent $32,00, according to CBC, sending three staff to a conference in Hawaii.

“I was as shocked as you are, being a new minister of education and this landing on my desk week after week,” Education Minister Jill Dunlop told Alex Pearson on AM 640, which is also owned by Global News’ parent, Corus Entertainment.

“I announced yesterday as well that I would be meeting with the directors of education and having a very frank discussion, before we jump into these audits, that this would be the time to come forward and let us know if there is anything questionable that has been going on with discretionary spending.”

Last spring, the government passed a new education law, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, which introduced a not-yet-enacted plan to audit school boards regularly.

That plan, according to the government, had originally been to focus on school board spending generally to give parents an idea of how public funds are being allocated. The flurry of controversies has now pushed the government to add a specific focus on discretionary spending to those audits.

“We will also be examining discretionary expenses as part of the bi-annual audits brought forward through legislation,” the Ministry of Education said in a statement.

The government has not finalized the audit process yet, nor has it decided whether the bi-annual financial inspections will be funded by Queen’s Park or local school boards.

“Regardless of if there’s a deficit in or a surplus, this is money to be spent in the classroom and not on these frivolous trips,” Dunlop said.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford had similarly blasted the school boards found to have expensed various trips — calling the spending “unacceptable” at an unrelated event in October.

“The stories go on and on and on — that’s why I’ve directed our minister of education to start doing audits of these school boards,” he said on Oct. 25.

“We’re pouring money into school boards and they’re out partying and acting like a bunch of yahoos.”