I am encouraged to see that a very active “Parent Advisory Committee”, displaying skills worthy of forensic accountants, have uncovered the fact that about $2 million per year, for at least five years, was left unspent for school operations, and this $10 million was transferred from the operating budget to the capital budget, which then financed the construction of a new board office.
It was regularly restated that such transfers were not possible, that the two piles of money were completely independent.
Shockingly, some members of the group that created or approved these budgets claimed they did not know where all the money came from to build the board office.
Either they did know, and proceeded anyway, or actually didn’t know. Either possibility is unacceptable.
In any case, students in our cash-strapped schools have missed out on what that $10 million could have provided for them. We require the people whom we trust to run our school system to understanding how every precious dollar is allocated before applying the proverbial rubber stamp.
I suggest that the newly built office be put on the market, likely to be snapped up by a business or professional group, which may have a genuine need to satisfy its “edifice complex”. The presently unused South Canoe school could be refurbished for a million dollars or so and become the board office, and the remaining millions given one of those “impossible” transfers back into the operating budget and used for direct help for the students who are suffering ongoing neglect in our schools. South Canoe school is in an isolated spot, so nobody should be disturbed by the regular whack of rubber stamps hitting documents.
Reid Fowler
