Provincial Board Report Released
Education Minister Jane Purves today released the provincial review into financial irregularities at the Chignecto-Central and Strait Regional school boards. Greater financial control and accountability are the key themes of the report.
"It's important to focus on what we can do to make sure situations like this don't happen again," said Ms Purves. "I expect further improvements as a result of current reviews and investigations like the forensic audit of the Strait board and senior board staff compensation review."
Among the recommendations are legislative changes that call for controls regarding a board's involvement in commercial initiatives that fall outside of public education, Department of Education final approval of personal services contracts, direct departmental involvement in the negotiation of superintendent contracts, and more extensive audit procedures at the board level.
Another recommendation includes reviewing the Department of Education's role in overseeing school boards with the intent to improve administration and governance.
"Taxpayers fund school boards to the tune of $800 million and they must have confidence that their money is being spent on students in the classroom," said Ms. Purves. "We intend to make changes so that students, parents, teachers and all taxpayers can have confidence their money is being spent with the students' best interests in mind."
The review team also reported it was satisfied that both the Chignecto-Central and Strait Regional school boards took appropriate action to investigate the events after they had come to light.
The Chignecto-Central Regional School Board recently released its own review conducted by an independent lawyer and is now reviewing its audit process. The minister and the Strait Regional School Board chair notified RCMP and ordered a forensic audit of that board's financial dealings since 1996.
Both boards have since taken immediate action to evaluate and improve reporting and auditing procedures and identified longer- term improvements.
The minister ordered the review of the two school boards on Oct. 23, shortly after being notified of both situations. The review was conducted by officials from the departments of Justice, Finance and Education.
A copy of the report can be obtained from the following Web site:
ftp://ftp.ednet.ns.ca/pub/educ/rpt/review.pdf