Pursuant to Standing Order 68, Dale Kirby, MHA for St. John's North, substitutes for Christopher Mitchelmore, MHA for The Straits – White Bay North.

The Committee met at 9:30 a.m. in the House of Assembly Chamber.

CHAIR (Bennett): Good morning, everybody. I welcome all of you to this meeting or hearing of the Public Accounts Committee. Before we go further, I am going to ask anybody if you have electronic devices, like this one, if you could silence them.

This Public Accounts Committee is a Committee that inquires into the expenditure of public money in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

My name is Jim Bennett; I am the Chair of the Committee. I am going to ask each of the Committee members to introduce themselves, starting with the Vice.

MR. BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

David Brazil, I am the Vice-Chair and the MHA for the District of Conception Bay East – Bell Island.

MR. S. COLLINS: Sandy Collins, MHA for the District of Terra Nova.

MR. K. PARSONS: Kevin Parsons, MHA for the District of Cape St. Francis.

MR. JOYCE: Eddie Joyce, MHA for Bay of Islands.

MR. CROSS: Eli Cross, MHA, Bonavista North.

MR. KIRBY: I am Dale Kirby. I am a Member of the House of Assembly for St. John's North. I am pitch hitting for my colleague, Christopher Mitchelmore, who is the Member for The Straits – White Bay North. He could not be here, so I was called up from the farm team.

CHAIR: Seated at the table with me are our staff members of the Public Accounts Committee for the purpose of this hearing. I will ask you to each introduce yourselves.

MS MURPHY: Elizabeth Murphy, Clerk of the Committee.

MR. DROVER: Craig Drover, Researcher.

CHAIR: Today we are inquiring into the findings of the Auditor General with respect to Western School District. We have a number of individuals in attendance as witnesses. These individuals have come here voluntarily; they are not under subpoena, or they are not under any compulsion to attend. Any evidence that they provide today is protected by a parliamentary privilege in that they are free to give any evidence that they are requested – in fact, are expected to give any evidence that they are requested - and any such evidence cannot be used against them.

I am going to ask the individuals if they would introduce themselves, starting with the first gentleman on my right.

MR. PADDON: My name is Terry Paddon, and I am the Auditor General for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. JANES: Claude Janes, Audit Principal.

MS RUSSELL: Sandra Russell, Deputy Auditor General.

MR. FELTHAM: Brian Feltham, Assistant Director for Finance and Administration.

DR. ELLIOTT: Ross Elliott, Director of Education, Western School District.

MR. KEEPING: George Keeping, Assistant Director, Human Resources, Western School District.

MS BATTCOCK: Sarah Battcock, Purchasing Manager, Western School District.

MR. KING: Brian King, Comptroller at Western School District.

CHAIR: Thank you.

All of the evidence is taken down, it is recorded in Hansard, so it is available, and this is a public hearing. The format that we follow is that members are invited to ask questions, they are provided ten-minute increments, and then we move on to the next member. We start with a member of the Official Opposition, then we go to the government, then we go to a member from the Third Party, and then we go back to the government, in ten-minute increments, until the members have no more questions.

The procedure that we have also agreed to follow is that the Chair, being myself, will reserve any questions until the end. If there are any additional questions required, then I would ask those questions at that time.

A normal sitting day would go until 4:30 p.m., if we needed to go that long. We will break for lunch around 12:30 p.m. or so – and I say around, because we probably would not stop in the middle of somebody's questioning, we likely would stop with a witness, instead of having the evidence being disjointed. We will take a morning break and an afternoon break for people to attend to phone calls or whatever they wish to attend to.

So, the first questioner is Mr. Joyce – I am sorry, Ms Murphy, who is very familiar with these matters, has indicated that she needs to administer the oath or affirmation to individuals who will be giving evidence.

Mr. Terry Paddon

Mr. Brian Feltham

Dr. Ross Elliott

Mr. George Keeping

Ms Sarah Battcock

Mr. Brian King

CHAIR: Before we commence, it is customary, in order to provide in part context and so people watching can understand the role of various individuals, that the Auditor General be invited to offer a statement if he wishes to do so. It is not mandatory; however, sometimes it is helpful because it provides context to viewers who may not be fully aware of the role of the Auditor General.

If Mr. Paddon would like to offer a statement, then we would be happy to hear from him.

MR. PADDON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I do have, with your indulgence, a couple of general comments. Perhaps, if you wish, I could make some specific comments of a general nature related to the audit of the Western School District, if that is okay.

This is really my first official duty as Auditor General. I was appointed on June 1, 2012. I have had the summer to get acclimated to the role and found it to be quite interesting and quite different from my previous positions.

With me today are two senior people in the Office of the Auditor General: Sandra Russell, who has recently been confirmed as Deputy Auditor General, and Claude Janes, who is Audit Principal with the office and essentially runs the Corner Brook office, and had direct supervisory responsibility for the audit of the Western School District.

Just some observations on the office I have found so far, it is a relatively small group. I would say a professional group, very dedicated and committed to the vision of the office of the Auditor General. It is a very busy office, lots on the go.

We have sort of a mandate really of two different lines of business. One is sort of a financial statement to test audits, where we would offer an opinion as to the fairness of the presentation of financial statements of government or government entities. Then, it is sort of the legislative or performance audits, such as we are discussing here that we engage in.

It was interesting; over the summer I had a chance to attend a conference of Auditor Generals across the country. It was a joint conference with members of Public Accounts Committees across the country. It really gave me an opportunity to have a better understanding of the – sort of a complimentary relationship between Public Accounts Committees and Auditor Generals. It is something I look forward to as we move forward, to maintain that relationship and develop that relationship on a go-forward basis. I am certainly excited by the challenge that I see as Auditor General and I look forward to my role in terms of enhancing accountability, performance, and good stewardship of public money.

In terms of the Western School District, I have just a couple of comments. I will point out, too, that this was a report that was prepared under the direction of the Acting Auditor General, Wayne Loveys, who retired on May 31.

The reviews occurred in 2011, and covered the period from June 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010. It covered a period of one-and-a-half years. The objectives of our audit were threefold: one, to determine whether compensation and recruitment practices were in accordance with government and district policy; two, whether purchases of goods and services were properly approved, monitored and complied with the Public Tender Act; and three, whether capital assets were properly monitored and controlled.

I would note that any audit does not look at 100 per cent of the transactions. Essentially, we look at a sample, and that sample is intended to be representative of the whole population. Generally what you would expect is that you would see similar observations throughout the full population that you see in the sample. It would not be cost-effective to look at everything 100 per cent.

As a result of the review that we made, the office made about forty observations where we felt there were areas that required attention or corrective action. They are outlined in the report of the previous Auditor General. Overall, as a result of those observations, there were seventeen recommendations that were made to the district. Obviously the district's response is contained in the report.

Just as sort of an overall concluding comment of a general nature is that of the observations that we made, a significant number of them resulted from the issue of either lack or inadequate documentation. I think that was kind of a general theme that we saw throughout the audit and was reflected in the report. I will leave it there.

CHAIR: Thank you Mr. Paddon.

Dr. Ross Elliott is the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Education of the Western School District. He has asked if he could provide us with a brief statement before the evidence – actually, he is under oath so anything he said would be evidence, but before we get into questioning.

Dr. Elliott, if you would like to provide that statement we would be happy to hear from you.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the Public Accounts Committee.

First, we thank you for this invitation today and look forward to the productive dialogue which will occur. The Western School District includes the southern part of Labrador, the Northern Peninsula through to Deer Lake, Corner Brook and Stephenville, and south to Port aux Basques and François. We have, as we speak, 11,300 students and something over 2,000 employees when you include permanent and casual.

The Western School District came into existence in the spring of 2004 with a consolidation of three districts. Schools opened in September, 2004 as a part of the new district. At that time, the district had eighty-two schools and a total student population of 14,742. There has been a 23 per cent decline in student population since 2004. We have sixty-five schools today, compared to the eighty-two that we had at that time.

The task of the new school district was to consolidate three separate financial systems, to consolidate schools where necessary for improved learning, to provide better facilities through new schools and redevelopments, while at the same time keeping an intense focus on student learning.

I should add, as well, that in addition to the consolidation, the early period of our school district coincided with a general increase in resources for maintenance and repair, and school budgets and so on. So, when we talk about consolidation, sometimes we think that was the major issue around that time. It was also the increase in the amount of good activity, as well as the financial and monetary responsibility that came with that. This is the first visit of the Auditor General since the beginning of this new school district and some of the observations of the Auditor General extend back to the original formation of the district.

Mr. Chair, and members of the Committee, the Western School District has two main goals. The first is student learning, and I am pleased that we have had many successes in student achievement in our school district, as indicated by test results and other data. The second goal is organizational learning, and in that regard we sincerely thank the Auditor General and his staff for the tremendous assistance that this report has given us in adjusting and addressing organizational processes and efficiencies. We appreciate the time spent, the discussions held, and we also appreciate any anticipated input from the report of the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr. Chair, the Western School District has had a balanced budget for each and every year since the new district came into existence. The Board of Trustees and the staff present today are confident in the overall integrity of our system and in our success in providing the very best educational opportunities for the students in the Western School District. At the same time, we continuously work to improve procedures, processes and documentation so that we can maximize our resources and enhance the effectiveness of the system.

Many of the issues in the Auditor General's report were in the process of being addressed prior to the report. The report has been a further stimulus and source of knowledge for us. I expect that our discussion with you today will give us the opportunity to outline the manner in which we have responded to the report and the improvements in documentation, processes, procedure, and results that have occurred since the report.

Mr. Chair, and members of the Committee, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this entire report. In my public statements to date, I have encouraged members of the public and of the media to read the entire report, including the district's response and the context provided by the district.

Also, for ease of communication, since I am aware of the knowledge held by particular members of my team this morning, I might suggest that questions could be directed to me and that I could refer to the appropriate team member as necessary. That being said, Mr. Chair, we are of course open to the wishes of the Committee on this and other items so as to best facilitate your purposes here today.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide these introductory words.

CHAIR: Thank you, Dr. Elliott.

It is common in matters such as Public Accounts Committees that questions would be directed to the lead member of the team, but there may be individuals who may have more information, as you have indicated. One person may be familiar with maintenance, one person may be familiar with curriculum, one person may be familiar with human resources, and it would only make sense that, although the questions would be directed to you, whatever member of your group could best answer the question will be the one who would first be looked to, to provide answers to those questions.

I will begin with Mr. Joyce from the Opposition.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Dr. Elliott and Mr. Paddon, for your opening remarks.

I will go to page 85 of the Auditor General's report. I will start off there with the public tendering. We will get this clarified pretty quickly.

On top of page 86, "The report referenced five purchases that were indicated as not being tendered as required by the Public Tender Act. However, it is the opinion of the District that two of the identified purchases totaling $356,191 were approved by the Department of Education in accordance with their established protocols and compliant with the Public Tender Act."

Do you have a letter on file to show the Department of Education approved that spending?

DR. ELLIOTT: Good morning, Mr. Joyce.

First of all, perhaps this may help us in the future as well. I seem to be looking at different numbers.

MR. JOYCE: It is right in the AG report, page 86.

DR. ELLIOTT: Sorry?

MR. JOYCE: Page 86, the AG report.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, and in ours – let's see if we can clarify this – in what we have here, the Western School District report starts at page 33. Are we dealing with different documents?

MR. JOYCE: No, I have the full report here.

DR. ELLIOTT: Sorry?

MR. JOYCE: I have the full report.

DR. ELLIOTT: Okay, then our copies – all right. It starts on what?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

DR. ELLIOTT: Okay, that clarifies that we are on the same document.

When you are looking at page 86, you are looking at our response, Mr. Joyce, are you?

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: Okay, very good.

MR. JOYCE: There was a spending of $356,191 that was approved by the Department of Education.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Do you have a letter on file that the Department of Education approved that, because that is contentious? Can you forward it to the Public Accounts Committee, that there is a letter on file saying you were given permission to do that?

WITNESS: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, if that letter is readily available could it be provided at the midday break, because if it comes and goes we may be able to use it this afternoon? Would that be preferable, Mr. Joyce, if it is available?

MR. JOYCE: Sure. I am assuming it was supplied to the AG in their report.

WITNESS: We did not see any documentation (inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: You did not see documentation?

WITNESS: It would have been in the backup documentation, yes.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Could individuals please identity themselves by name before they speak? Because we will have a written record and we will not know who is saying what.

Mr. Janes.

MR. JANES: As I said, we do not have any documentation, or I do not recollect having any documentation related to the approval from the Department of Education. Even if that was the case, we do not necessarily agree that it was not in compliance, or non-compliance with the Public Tender Act.

CHAIR: So, if it could be made available by midday, it would be more helpful.

MR. JOYCE: Yes, perfect, yes.

CHAIR: If not, we can get it later, but the more things we can do today the less likely we are to have to come back another day.

DR. ELLIOTT: If I might conclude on this, I do not recall if such documentation was asked for by the Auditor General at that time, but the point is that it does exist, Sir, and it will be forwarded.

MR. JOYCE: Perfect.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thank you.

MR. JOYCE: The next one is the amount of $10,680. Once again, it did not go to public tender. Can you explain how this happened? Why and who made the decision? "…the District based its original estimate on historical financial data".

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, I am just having a slight difficulty in hearing you over on this side.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: You are on page 87 now?

MR. JOYCE: The same page, 86.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, if you would not mind just repeating that question.

MR. JOYCE: With regard to the bus contract for one year in the amount of $10,680, the district based its original estimate on historical financial data and did not go to public tender. Can you explain why it did not go to public tender?

MR. FELTHAM: That contract was based not on an annual contract but on a monthly contract. Historical information was indicating that the amount would be less than $10,000 and, as a result, as the year progressed, the amount exceeded that $10,000.

MR. JOYCE: I am asking because I know in most government departments if it is less than $10,000 you have to get three quotes. Did the department get three quotes? As the contract came up did the department get the quotes to ensure that it is below $10,000?

MS BATTCOCK: It was believed for that area that this was the sole provider as it was in a remote location.

MR. JOYCE: Once you agree it is a sole provider, you do not put it out in public tender or ask for quotes? Is that still common practice at the school board now? If someone at the school board feels that, okay, it is the sole provider so we will not put it out to tender? Has that changed now? Hopefully, it has.

MS BATTCOCK: Yes, it has changed.

MR. JOYCE: It has changed?

MS BATTCOCK: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Because of the AG report?

MS BATTCOCK: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Excellent. That is the idea of the AG report, to ensure in compliance with the public tendering.

In the next one, the recycling contract, "…was not tendered at the time, since it was thought that the acquisition of this service was sole source."

Who made that decision? I am out that way and I know there is more than one.

MR. FELTHAM: That decision would have been made by staff in the maintenance department and it was believed there was only one provider. Since the contract was occurring, we did discover through the Auditor General that there was another provider. That contract has since gone through public tender and only one vender bid on the contract.

MR. JOYCE: Staff at the maintenance office can make that decision to put stuff out to tender?

MR. FELTHAM: No, what occurs is a two-stage process. The need is identified in a particular department and then they work, through our purchasing manager, for the procedures and processes to be followed.

MR. JOYCE: Has that changed now? Does it at least go to public tender now?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce, the contract was out to tender and we received one vendor bidding on that particular contract.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

In "the amount of $26,390 the District acknowledges there was an error in the prior year's addendum. The contract should not have been extended into the third year, but the extension was based on the addendum and not the original contract."

Was that just an error in reading the contract itself?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce that is correct, an error occurred in the department.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you.

"In relation to the contracts for the amounts of $77,968 and $280,125 respectively, the District renewed these contracts on the direction it received from the Department of Education." Once again, does the school board have a letter confirming that the Department of Education gave them permission to go ahead with this? Can you produce that letter to the Public Accounts?

WITNESS: Yes, we can.

MR. JOYCE: Lunch time so that we could – thank you.

As we find out, a lot of these things here going through the school board – and I have been dealing with the AG now for a long while. If this documentation, if it was there and readily available then, even if it was – and as the AG mentioned and I would ask the AG – is that usually in compliance with the Public Tender Act?

MR. PADDON: Regardless of whether the Department of Education gave permission, if you want to call it that, to act in the way that it was done, if we felt that the transaction overall was not in compliance with the Public Tender Act, we would still have reported it.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Next we have questions from a government member.

MR. BRAZIL: I want to welcome the Auditor General to his first hearing, and his staff back again, particularly Dr. Elliott and the delegation from the Western School Board.

As you know, obviously the Committee selected this as one of the issues of concern after a consultation meeting with the Auditor General to look at some of the issues that had happened in the Western School District. Particularly because there had been a trend from other school districts that we wanted to see if this could be nipped in the bud and if there were some ways of advising the school district to improve some of the services and some of the practices they had put in place.

I must admit I am very impressed with the responses and the outline. They gave me exactly a fair understanding of your approach to addressing some of these issues, that you have accepted there are some shortfalls in the practices of the Western School District itself, and that you have taken procedures to do that. My background as a former civil servant, and particularly around human resources, lends me a little bit more to ask – you have outlined exactly how you are going to look at the deficiencies when it comes to your policies around employee management and compensation.

It is spelled out there, but I want to ask you to elaborate a little bit more and take me through the process you will use when you go out to look at employee records and compensation for the employees you now have in place, keeping in mind that you mentioned 2,000 employees. We do understand the vast geography, but 2,000 is a fair-sized organization. Obviously there are going to be some integral workings you have to put in place. I would ask that you take me through that so I am clear what you are putting in place will address some of the shortfalls identified by the Auditor General, please.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Sir.

I will open on that, and then ask Mr. Keeping to perhaps provide some details. As the Auditor General and you have indicated, many of the issues here are around documentation. To go deeper than that, in some cases it is not just whether documentation exists but where it exists. I would say that in many of the cases with regard to hiring documentation certainly existed, but it was not all comprehensively located in the one file.

For example, unsuccessful candidates were certainly notified but the record of that would have been the record of the secretary who did the notification, and that was not necessarily in the file. I just give that as an example. That has now changed.

I am going to turn it to George Keeping perhaps for some further detail.

MR. KEEPING: Thank you very much, Dr. Elliott.

First I will say, as did Dr. Elliott, the interaction and the questions that came from the Auditor General were very, very helpful. I will reiterate we have to keep in mind the context. The context is you have three separate districts that have come together. For a period of time there was one employee who was trying to oversee a very massive district. For a period of time, you had one assistance director and an assistant. So the learning that has occurred from that time to now has been immense.

I think with the additional knowledge that we have gained from this experience with the Auditor General, our processes are much more efficient and in a much better place. That is not to say anything with respect to the people who have gone before; they were all hardworking people who were in a situation that required an intense amount of attention to detail.

Just some of the things I will mention very quickly: The interaction right now with Treasury Board and getting the positions properly compensated, we are in a really good place. The processes we follow, at all times, we are interacting with personnel to make sure that the job descriptions and that part and the proper process is going, bringing it forward so that it is reviewed by the Hay committee and those steps are done. If you look at the Auditor General report, you will notice that in the beginning the time frames were a little longer and then as the years go by, you see that the processes are getting more efficient. So, that piece we have certainly worked on.

With respect to the documentation, as Dr. Elliott said, there was, I guess, to have all of the documentation in one particular file that was readily available is something now that we have gotten the communication out to our human resources managers and out to our education officers such that files that are brought in we make sure that if someone withdrew from the file, that there is a notation put in, an e-mail that this person has now withdrawn from the competition. So the Auditor General or anyone else who looks at a competition file, there is no need to wonder what happened to this particular candidate. That documentation is now in place.

The interviews and the rating of the interviews and the rating of the entire process is there for people to see as to how we approached it, as to why we made the decision that we made, and there is a directive given that all of this will now be put into the competition file. So, really and truly, that experience was a learning opportunity for us and we seized up on it and we are in a better place.

I do not know if you have any specific questions around other aspects of it.

MR. BRAZIL: You do mention that you are going to be looking at a computerized program that will be implemented –

MR. KEEPING: For the on-line –

MR. BRAZIL: Have you gotten to that stage since that?

MR. KEEPING: Yes, we are. That is kind of a combination of finance and human resources because it is also used to track overtime, but it also allows for people to put in their leave. So, for example, after the end of the two-week pay period, we are in a position where we can go on-line and look at what people have put forward, and also to cross-reference with the leave request forms and so on that have been submitted. We are in a place where we are able to more accurately then go back and see where things are; whereas before, without that electronic software it was a much more difficult and arduous process, and a manual process of transferring things from one place to the other.

So, yes, there were occasions when there could have been a half day missed. Even having said that, when people retire and so on, we do a comprehensive look back through their files such that if there were days missed that they do not actually lose them at the point of retirement or resignation. So, if you were to come in midway through and look at a file, yes, there might have been a day that was missed, but before they finish with the organization, a comprehensive review was done by the human resources division to ensure that they do not miss it overall.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, so it would be picked up.

Has there been any collaboration between the other school districts? It is a bit concerning to me, again, as a former civil servant, that we run into these issues year after year from different school districts, that Central will run into it, and Eastern will run into it. Have you sort of sat down with each other to look at how the human resource process is done, or the communications process, or the tendering process – other than the standards that are set by government through our policies?

MR. KEEPING: Yes, we have, from the human resources perspective – now, I do not know when this was started, but I know when I came into the office that there were regular meetings with Mr. Wayne Noseworthy, our labour relations person, and we would meet with our assistant directors and our education officers, and we would compare and try to make sure that we are in sync and we have regular e-mail communication. This has taken a while to develop, as you can appreciate, but this is something that now we are trying to move towards to make sure that in the different practices we are in sync as much as we can be. This will only get better.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, sounds good.

I have a question around – you are mentioned the red circling. How closely are you working with the NLTA to identify what they consider to be part of their policies, relevant to the school board's ability to identify who gets red circled in certain positions?

MR. KEEPING: Well, we would work with the NLTA, but we would also be working with our own officials at the Department of Education. For example, in the most recent case where we had to do that, there was lots of communication to ensure that the periods were right and this was the correct letter and that we were in a position where we could certainly say that, yes, this employee is in a position to be red circled, and the letter is documented to ensure that it is there for the file.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, I am just going to move right off the human resource part of it because that will suffice until I come back with some other questions after.

I want to go through the trip advance policy. While it is not a big amount of money, it is a concern because it is public funds being not accounted within the realm of what we should do as the Public Accounts and the Auditor General.

Describe how you are going to improve – and you have outlined it here – the whole trip advance policies, the receivables, and the clear and timely manner that people either get reimbursed or the money is returned that is not used. Somebody from your financial –

MR. KING: Yes, I can.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, I appreciate that.

MR. KING: Thank you very much.

Our travel advance policy is one we have in place to assist our staff members with the burden of financing their travel in advance of receiving their expense claim, processed either at the district or at the department. In order to tidy that up a little more, we have implemented some measures. First and foremost, we have begun to insert writing a travel advance cheque, with the cheque in the envelope, a reminder that upon receipt of your travel expense claim from the department, you are to immediately reimburse the district for the advance you received.

Travel advances are looked over, duly reviewed, and authorized before they are issued. When they are issued, they are logged in what we call a file, an Excel spreadsheet, noting the date it was issued. It is followed up on a monthly basis with a proactive call to the particular person who received the advance, if it has not already been recovered.

The reason we have it in place at all is because we have experienced some longer-than-normal times for these departmental claims to be reimbursed. We have done a review of that time frame. We have shortened it now. We fully expect that everyone will have been reimbursed by the department certainly within ninety days, and that is improving all the time. Not that we wait ninety days to deal with it. We are being much more proactive on a monthly basis to be sure we recover those. It has made a considerable difference in our success in recovering them in a timely manner.

MR. BRAZIL: So that is your operating policy right now?

CHAIR: Thank you. You may want to come back on a supplementary (inaudible).

MR. BRAZIL: I am great there, thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Kirby is next.

MR. KIRBY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess I want to start out with the July 24 response to Public Accounts Committee, question one. It states, near the middle of the first paragraph: Managers have received training in the NLTA collective agreement and will receive further training in CUPE and NAPE collective agreements as required.

I guess I am having some difficulty understanding why managers at the Western School District were not already trained in what I would assume would be basic practices that constitute their jobs effectively. I am pleased to see, from the response here, that some training is taking place, and I am glad to see the software is being implemented. I guess I am wondering why managers would need to have training in collective agreements that govern the relationship with employees of the Western School District.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Kirby, I will make a start on that, and I think George will comment as well.

An important question was asked by our friend earlier around the NLTA. You are right; we work within the broad agreements that have been negotiated. These are important to our operation.

My comment on your question would be that it depends on how far down you go in the organization with that level of knowledge. Certainly, for example, we would have a high level of knowledge of all of the collective agreements at certain levels within the organization. What we are trying to do is to, I guess, push some of the management functions further down into the organization and then that requires training so that more people have the knowledge that Brian Feltham has and George Keeping has.

Another very simple thing here when we talk about training as well is that we have considerable staff turnover, so in some instances we are talking about training new staff.

George, I will let you –

MR. KEEPING: That is the guts of what I was going to say. We started with the education officers because of the fair bit of turnover. Also, as you would be aware, there are always interpretations of incidents that occur that we have not had to deal with: privacy, new legislation. So, there is always the upgrading, as you are aware, of understanding of the collective agreement and what this means in certain situations because of things that have occurred in other schools, other districts, other provinces, other countries.

What we felt we would do is we would start by making sure we start with the NLTA collective agreement and work our way down through. As we are in the process now of negotiating new collective agreements, for example, some of the people who would be on these negotiating teams representing the management with perspective, we would hope to get these people in and help us understand the nuances of particular articles as to why they came into being, what they mean and what the changes mean so that we are as current and on top of things as we can be.

When they take situations coming from principals, they understand the guiding principles that led to this particular article, so they can respond and help our principals deal with situations very appropriately and not have anymore time distracted from the learning agenda than we have to have distracted. This is something we are committed to; to make sure we have professional development for our managers to keep them as up to date as we possibly can.

DR. ELLIOTT: If I could just add one piece that might be of interest to you, Mr. Kirby, on this question as well.

We all realize that a collective agreement is not quite as static as we sometimes visualize. It is a document on which each party to the agreement occasionally pushes its own interpretations. Therefore, there is ongoing discussion, in some cases ongoing arbitration, around the interpretation of issues. A part of this as well is staying abreast of developments around the collective agreement, even though it might have been signed several years before.

MR. KIRBY: Sure, but would you agree then that it is an understanding of the collective agreements with the employees of the Western School District as a basic function of the responsibilities of managers of human resources?

DR. ELLIOTT: It would depend on which level you go, and that is quite a discussion within – for example, a principal is a manager of human resources, as I am sure you would recognize, in many senses. There has been quite a discussion as to whether time invested in the training of principals in collective agreement issues is advantageous over having that knowledge at more of an expert level for the, hopefully, few times when the principal needs it. There is a demarcation line and what we are doing is moving that demarcation line a little closer to the front line, but not right on the front line.

I should say, as well, Sir, that education officers, as you know, is a relatively new category. Three of them were added to our school district somewhat recently, and they are growing into that role of assuming HR advice to their schools.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

In response to the questions of the committee dated July 24, the district noted it had reviewed HR procedures to ensure employee records are up to date and that the district has adopted policies to periodically review employee files to ensure completeness.

Again, wouldn't ensuring the completeness of employee records be considered to be a basic duty of human resource managers? I am wondering: If that is the case, then why it was not done previously?

MR. KEEPING: I think that is self-evident, that it would be part of our responsibility to make sure that records are in place. As I have mentioned earlier, the manual part of it, as identified by the Auditor General, led us to move into the electronic format to make sure things are at least done more efficiently, as they should be.

As part of our own efforts to make sure we are doing this as good as we possibly can, the decision that, I guess I can say we wanted to move into, was that after the end of the major hiring season, and in October we would run a quick audit of our own with our internal auditor. The details of that piece we will have to work out, but we wanted to do our own double check just to go and pick some files at random to see how we are doing here before we in four years time – because we put out directives, we just want to make sure that things are being done that we want done.

As I mentioned in my earlier answer, the complete review of an employee's file when they resign or retire, again, is the other part that ensures we have not lost – any days have not gone missing when it comes to recording their annual leave and their overtime, things like that. So, yes, a quick answer, yes. As in all organizations, we try to make sure things are in place.

A second part is we are going to try to do some double checks too, just to make sure that what we are asking to do is getting done.

MR. KIRBY: Is there any written documentation available outlining the new procedures that are in place?

MR. KEEPING: Yes, that has been e-mailed by me to education officers and our human resources assistants. As the files come in and so on, we have on the files checks that have to be ticked off so that we have those things done with respect to hiring. Letters have gone out from the human resources department, for example, to our offices to make sure on a monthly basis we see where employees are with their leave and their step progression. We have directives gone out to try to consolidate these processes to make them more efficient.

MR. KIRBY: Is that something that can be made available to the Public Accounts Committee, these new procedures?

MR. KEEPING: Yes.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Kirby.

I understand that there is a document going to be provided. It is a questionnaire of some form, or a directive. Is that correct, Mr. Keeping? You are going to provide a document that summarizes the new procedure you are following?

MR. KEEPING: Yes.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

A government member.

MR. S. COLLINS: Just to echo what my colleague had said previous. While the report came out, it was quite concerning. I think most of the responses, if not all of the responses you have given have been quite good. It is one thing, of course, putting things on paper; it is another thing putting it into practice.

I just want to talk about a few things. The AG had mentioned at the start that this is a sampling. You have a huge organization. I think it was $160 million in expenditures, 2,000 employees, and whatnot. So it is just a sample size. If you make systematic changes, of course, that would hopefully, on a go-forward basis, solve the other problems that were not looked at perhaps or were not identified.

With that in mind, going back to what Mr. Brazil had touched on there in his last round of questioning with regard to the travel reimbursement. I am just wondering how the new rules differ from the previous ones. You talk about the typical review process is how it is stated. It goes on to talk about review by accounts payable staff, the comptroller is involved with reviews, and finally, of course, the accountant takes a look.

I am just wondering how that new process has changed from the previous one. Of course, if there has not been much change we are not going to see a change in results. I am just wondering if you would bring me through where we were, because I have seen – you touch on where we are or where we are going, but what has changed?

MR. KING: Our travel claim adjudication process, we have done a few things to try and improve and flag every single instance of something that may have been ineligible before it is paid, of course.

We have recently issued memos and had some in-servicing with – first of all, everyone who wants to submit a claim, we have reminded them of the rules. We have told them the primary responsibility for accuracy and completeness does rest with the submitter. We want to make that very, very clear upfront.

We have also extended communication and had correspondence with every one of our managers and our supervisors to ensure that they are fully aware of what types of things are eligible, what things are not, what to look for, before they complete their review and authorize it for payment. From there is does go down to our accounting staff. They have been reminded, and we have gone through the various types of things – they need to eyeball the things that can slip through. Like the odd meal, things like that, based on the times of departure and the times of return, to be very, very conscious of, if by chance it has slipped the eye of the supervisor, that we catch it as well. That has helped out. As I have seen it so far, it has been working really, really well.

The accountant who gives the final go ahead to put it into the system has also taken it upon herself to give that a real good check. At the time of some of these pieces that were noted in the AG report, there was some changeover of some staff in some key roles. The current people, who are the permanent people, are back, are very versed and very confident, and I am very confident, that we are in a good place to take care of these issues going forward.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay.

Would it be fair to say that the proposals were all in place beforehand but, of course, they just were not being practiced? Is that a fair statement?

MR. KING: Quite frankly, it was missed. The protocols were in place. We have tightened them. We have reminded – we have everyone involved to be very sure that it is caught. It is extremely important that, as all our practices are, they are done to the best of everyone's ability. We feel good about the fact that the level of awareness around what is eligible and what is not, and being sure that all people who are part of the process are versed and understand and noted when to push back, what to do in every instance before a claim is approved and payment is released.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay, thanks.

Also, it is always the thing going third or forth in questioning, some of the questions will be touched on previous.

I am just wondering if you would go back to the timely manner that is there. I noticed when you were speaking in your response the last time around you had mentioned the ninety days. I notice that it says just in extenuating circumstances ninety days would be given.

Outside of those circumstances, which you have touched on briefly before, what would a timely manner be and what happens when that time elapses? What sort of steps would be taken?

MR. KING: Okay. The timely manner is really upon receipt of their claim from the department, they have been advised to immediately, within reason – if it is someone within a day or two, we would want to be sure we are in receipt of this advance that they have now been reimbursed for by the department. That is sort of the timely manner piece. That had not been happening in every case, as the Auditor General helped us identify. That is our expectation. That is the expectation that everyone who takes a travel claim now has.

We have experienced some – we have researched this, it has taken upwards of, I think at the time it could have been upwards of three to four months before some of our travellers were reimbursed for department claims. We took another close look at it as we stated we would, having discussed it with the Auditor General's office. That seems to have been improved at that time. We could readily say that in ninety days surely everyone should be straightened away and we should have our claim returned.

That said, as I mentioned, the rule is that as soon as they get it they need to send it to us for recovery right away. Every month we will look at the dates that advances were issued. We will follow up with everyone on a monthly basis just to see if we have not already had it returned: Where is it? What is the status? Should people be tardy in doing that, we will consider suspending their privilege of this type of advance in the future.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay, perfect.

Just to change gears, what possibly is a quick question regarding the cellphone policy. Have we been provided a copy of that policy? I did not see it there. I checked again this morning, I did not see it.

My reason for asking that, I am just wondering, it seems as though it was a policy that was developed after this AG report came out. Would that be correct in saying, or was it a policy that was always put in place but never recognized and never practiced?

MS BATTCOCK: The policy was in place.

MR. S. COLLINS: It was in place. Okay, so the exact same policy we are looking at today has been in practice before?

MS BATTCOCK: Yes, we have made slight adjustments to it, and I do have that here.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay.

I am just wondering: how would that differ from other school districts and from government in general, the cellphone policy?

I am just wondering, basically, if I could get a copy of the cellphone policy. I guess that would answer my question just to – because I did not see it in here. Then I could probably see the changes that were taking place, because obviously when I look through some of the things that had gone on with cellphones, it is somewhat concerning. So, I am just wondering if that could be provided, the cellphone policy.

MS BATTCOCK: Yes, I can provide that.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay, perfect.

Speaking of policy, I am just wondering, there was a little blurb in there with regard to the purchase of liquor. What is the policy for purchasing liquor with the school board? There was a number in there, I believe, $700, if I am correct.

DR. ELLIOTT: The policy on the purchase of liquor is that liquor not be purchased. I did, I think, see some documentation here around that that was sent to schools by our auditor.

MR. FELTHAM: Just to add, that following the Auditor General's review, we studied fifty-two schools around their practices. Following that, of course, we then sent, under the internal auditor, communication around that there would be no tolerance for purchasing alcohol.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay.

So it is obviously not an issue on a go-forward basis. That is something that was pretty black and white, I guess.

MR. FELTHAM: It should not be an issue.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Before I go to Mr. Joyce, I understand that the witnesses may have some of these documents with them, the cellphone policy or something like this. If there is anything of that nature that you have that the committee has requested, at the break I would ask if you could provide it to Mr. Drover. Then he can make copies and have it circulated, so it will be less work later and more useful now. Thank you.

Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Bennett.

I will go back on page 33, just with some of the hiring. I am sure the school board hears it, and I hear it, and rightly or wrongly, is that a lot of young teachers find it very difficult to try to get hired at the school board. As we see in the AG's report, and I will ask the board, how many retired teachers are on staff now that were hired because you could not get positions filled, or are there any now?

MR. KEEPING: No, there are no retired teachers at the moment working with the district.

MR. JOYCE: How many were there last year or the year before when the report was done?

MR. KEEPING: The last year, I think we were in a situation in one remote community where there was a math teacher, I do believe, who went off sick and we could not get a suitable replacement. So, for about half the year we had to hire a retired math teacher. We were very fortunate that we actually had a retired teacher to go in and do the work; otherwise, students would not have learned mathematics for that year.

MR. JOYCE: As we see in the AG report with the documentation for recruitment on page 33, "None of the 11 competition files reviewed had complete documentation on the competition process, including 2 files which did not contain adequate documentation to support why the District had rehired retired teachers instead of other candidates."

So that is not correct?

DR. ELLIOTT: Again, this is an issue of documentation. None of the eleven competition files reviewed had complete documentation on the competition process. There was, of course, a competition process. In most cases the documentation existed, but we are back to the issue, which we have now rectified, of all of that being readily accessible and in the one place, in the one file.

MR. JOYCE: The Auditor General is saying here in the file, "…including 2 files which did not contain adequate documentation to support why the District had rehired retired teachers instead of other candidates."

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes –

MR. JOYCE: We were just told that there was none hired. I do not know if the –

DR. ELLIOTT: I do not think, Sir, you were told that there was none hired. We are talking about – I cannot recall which year now.

MR. KEEPING: I spoke to this year and last year. In those particular cases there, which was – what was the year?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. KEEPING: In those two particular cases there, it was our view that we had advertised and they were not suitable replacements. I guess there was a bit of a difference of view as to what constituted having a candidate suitable for the position. In our view on these files, we did not have suitable candidates at the time that could do the position because of the combination of qualifications, experience, and so on that we normally use when we are looking for a candidate that is suitable, if I recall correctly.

MR. JOYCE: Is that clarified now so that from here on in the procedure –

MR. KEEPING: Yes, the process – anything with respect to hiring would be involving ourselves and the department, getting people approved, advertising a number of times, demonstrating that there is just – and we did at that point – no candidate, in our view, that we felt was suitable.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, if I could just add something to that, again I will be a little bit more precise about those particular files because I am familiar with them. Our right to determine whether a candidate is suitable is a right that management has. In this situation, we exercised that right.

The difficulty, as I understand it, that the Auditor General had – that we agree is a difficultly and that we rectified – is the file upon examination did not have written in it a record of that kind of decision making. One could not pick up that file and say: Well, that is the decision that was made on this candidate, on that candidate, and so on.

MR. JOYCE: So I ask the AG: Do you agree it was just documentation and not that the positions were not actually put out for public competition?

MR. PADDON: In this particular case, it was our view that this was a documentation issue. Of course, in the absence of documentation it is difficult then to draw any conclusions one way or the other.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

In the next one down, Dr. Elliott, "In 7 of 24 personnel files reviewed, there was no documentation present to indicate that a competition had been held when the individual had been appointed to the non-teaching position."

Has that been corrected now also? Has the documentation been put in the file to show there was competition?

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Keeping is going to respond to that.

MR. KEEPING: In those particular cases there, those were ones where the volume of work at the time required – just being able to do the work and to get it done, there had to be temporary positions put in. The process normally, once you have established there is a need, you then go through that normal review of the organization, get the position fully described, and then sent for reclassification.

MR. JOYCE: So what you do is you put someone in the position, you let them carry out the position, and then you put it out to public competition.

MR. KEEPING: Yes, but keeping in mind the context I said in the beginning. This was the context of the boards being put together and the volume of work that was created with limited staff.

MR. JOYCE: When was the board put together?

MR. KEEPING: 2004.

MR. JOYCE: This is 2009-2010, five or six years later.

MR. KEEPING: Okay, so you are gone a little further ahead.

MR. JOYCE: I hear the complaints. I am sure the board does also.

What I am being told here is that positions come up, you appoint someone temporary to the positions because of the workload. Once that person – because we have documentation here from the AG where there are people in the positions for up to fifty months without even advertising the position; there are some longer. You put someone in the position for a number of months, years, I am not sure what, and then you go and advertise to see who is best qualified for that position.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce if I might speak to this.

MR. JOYCE: Sure.

DR. ELLIOTT: Here is the context as I see it. These situations evolved in a certain context. I do not wish to reference 2004, let us go back to last year or the year before.

MR. JOYCE: Let us go back when the report was done, because that is what we are dealing with here.

DR. ELLIOTT: Sure, that is fine and, as a matter of fact, a good year to talk about it. We run into situations – and I want to paint a picture as to the kind of position that might be filled in this kind of way.

We run into instances where we might, for September, be closing down three schools and going into a new one. We might be dealing with, as we have dealt with, facilities issues. I could not begin to describe to you the amount of work that is going on in maintenance in facilities and repairs in new schools and everything else.

We have a circumstance where an employee is sick, or leaves, or moves to another position, which is fairly common by the way in these positions. Here we are, it is end of July and by golly we have to get the school opened in September. These are the kinds of situations that cause us to say we have to have someone in place right away. That is how it happens.

I believe the piece, though, in which improvement – which the Auditor General quite rightly points out – should occur, has occurred, and is continuing to occur, is that once that is done there needs to be a more timely piece in terms of advertising the position and so on.

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: We accept the criticism that too much time in some instances elapses between the necessary appointment –

MR. JOYCE: I understand, yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: – and the going of that into advertisement.

MR. JOYCE: I ask the AG again: In these positions, it stated that they are non-teaching positions. In the report it says non-teaching. So, Dr. Elliott, what you are talking about is probably teaching positions, but these are non-teaching. So, were these school board positions or maintenance?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: Well, no, I am just asking the AG or –

MR. JANES: Yes, they were non-teaching; it could have been in maintenance, or busing, or at the board office.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, so what you just described was the situation where you are hiring teachers, but these were non-teaching positions.

DR. ELLIOTT: No, Mr. Joyce, what I just described were non-teaching positions. There is another item here on teaching positions. What I just described were people who may be managers of maintenance, people who may be involved in accounting and busing and so on. Specifically, the non-teaching –

MR. JOYCE: Has this been rectified now to ensure a timely fashion that a competition has been put out?

MR. KEEPING: I guess two parts to that, just not to lose the point. We do have the ability to appoint people in those non-teaching positions when there is a need. We are within our right to do that.

The answer to your second question is yes, in the ideal world, what we do is you review the division, you look at the work that is required, you develop the job description, you do all those pieces and get it approved, but in extenuating circumstances, we do have the right to appoint someone to a position temporarily to make sure the work gets done. Our goal is to ensure that it is done in an efficient way. That the new position is created, and then classified and all of the other pieces that go with it. So, the answer is yes –

MR. JOYCE: How long can you appoint somebody?

MR. KEEPING: Up until six months, I believe. I would have to go double check now, but I think it is six months.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MR. KEEPING: Anyway, the second answer is yes.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, might I just add, though, that while we can do it up to three months, it is not our objective that it would be – sorry, six months? Anyway, whatever the time period is, it is not our objective that it should always take that long. So, what we are instituting is even though it may not be a requirement, a more timely advertisement process that follows an appointment.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

A government member.

MR. K. PARSONS: First of all, I would like to welcome you all here this morning and thank you for coming.

I really like your response to the questions that were given to you, I think they were excellent responses, and most of the things that were in the Auditor General's report have been addressed. I would like to ask the Auditor General's department if they could let us know – I know that you do an extensive review of the responses back from each department that you have questioned, on the Auditor General's report. What is your response to their response to you? Are you satisfied with what they have given you, or are there any particulars there that you would like to see them address a little bit more?

MR. PADDON: Two points, first we have not seen the responses that you are referring to so I cannot –

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay, but the response in the Auditor General's report?

MR. PADDON: In the report itself?

MR. K. PARSONS: Yes.

MR. PADDON: As a general comment, the responses seem to indicate that there is a recognition that things will be looked at and processes put in place to take the appropriate action.

Our process would be two years after the report paragraph comes out we will follow up with the particular entity to see how they have made out in terms of addressing the recommendations, and we will do some work at that point in time to do some verification as to how they have implemented the recommendations that we have put forward.

MR. K. PARSONS: There are no major concerns there that you have with any of their responses?

MR. PADDON: There is nothing in the responses that would give us cause for concern that they would not be heading in the direction that we would think. Having said that, we will wait until the two-year period is up and we will provide a report at that point in time as to how the organization is addressing our recommendations.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay.

I have a question to you, Dr. Elliott. I know that the school board came into existence in 2004 and the report was done in 2010. What took so long to get all of these policies straightened up? When you read this report, there are a lot of questions there when it comes to travel. There are a lot of questions when it comes to phone coverage and with cellphones. There are a lot of questions when it comes to hiring and everything else. It seems with your response that you gave us – I mean, it is a great response, like I said earlier, but why did it take so long to get these policies in place?

DR. ELLIOTT: I will answer this in a number of ways.

First of all, I would like to say that much was in place. The thread of our response was that there were very good procedures in a lot of things, and in a lot of the instances, it may have been a case where, as I would expect would be true in many organization, that the procedures might not always have worked as they should.

I would first like to say that our view of that time is that many, many things were in place. The second thing, I guess, that I would say is that we live in changing times. One of those changing times was the general increase in funding and the greater volume of everything from purchasing to accounting to everything else that occurred at the school level and at the district level, so we were dealing with a volume issue.

There was a third thing that I was going to say that has escaped me at the moment.

Brian, do you wish to add anything to this?

MR. FELTHAM: What I would say is that there was an evolution of the district from coming together in the early stages to identifying needs as work continued. For example, as more money was provided for repair and maintenance by government that, in itself, brought the need to hire additional staff. So additional staff were those required in the maintenance department, and we hired an internal auditor. Those things were occurring in stages throughout our evolution. With the addition of the additional pieces, we were certainly able to respond in a timelier way and more efficient way than we could have back in 2004.

Just to repeat a point: With the addition of additional funding, it brings with it another workload. So if it were status quo from the beginning with a volume of work and money stayed the same, for example, in one area, you would anticipate existing policies and procedures will guide you through then. As we built new schools – we have processed more than $100 million in new schools. That brought with it another piece of work for the district to assist in the planning and design of that type of work.

So there would be an evolution to get to the point where we are now, and there is extreme confidence about where we are with respect to our ability to address the issues that have been identified by the Auditor General.

DR. ELLIOTT: Sir, if I could, I did remember my point.

The other context around this – and I want to be very careful in stating it because I want to state very clearly upfront that all of these matters, all of these efficiencies are, in our view, of the extreme and utmost importance. So, I do not want anything that I am going to say to denigrate from that; however, what I will say is that during the time we have been together as a school district, our focus – our main focus – has been on the learning of students, on reading and writing, on all of those things. Next to that, on the professional development of our teachers, without which we cannot expect the kind of learning outcomes we are getting.

If I can use perhaps an overused analogy, our experience has been a little bit like perhaps refitting a 747 while keeping it in smooth flight. The flight part is the focus on student outcome, student intervention, student learning, and rescuing of students who need the kinds of supports that we must give them. The refitting of the organization as we go through is extremely important and supports that goal. That is, I think, the kind of continuous environment that school boards are in.

Some of our staff, Sarah Battcock, who is with me this morning, our internal auditor, Sherry Brake, and others as well, came to us as the organization evolved. I do not know just how many years they have been here, but that has been our process.

Thank you.

MR. FELTHAM: Could I just add one thing? The district, in the beginning, did not have a purchasing manager. The district believed it was an important position to have in the organization.

I want to give you the dimensions, just very quickly, of what that person now would do in addition to other duties. She manages $20.5 million in terms of purchases. We do about 26,000 purchases each year. She manages 625 contracts. She works on eighty-five public tenders in a year. More than 300 quotations are required. She processes about 3,000 telephone inquiries and answers about 7,000 e-mails. That is what that position does, in addition to other duties.

MR. K. PARSONS: There is no doubt you are a huge organization, and I realize that. With 3,000 employees, like you said, you are dealing with over 11,000 students. You said earlier you had one person on staff that was handling a lot of your documentations and doing a lot of extra filing and whatnot to register everything.

Do you have enough on staff now do to that? Have there been changes made to your staff to make sure that the documentation – because most of the issues I see that came back from the AG report, and the AG mentioned himself, was based on documentation and knowing where things are and knowing where everything is.

Does the school board have the proper people in place now to make sure that documentation is there?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes. First of all, I would just want to make clear and take responsibility that we would not want to put all the documentation issues down to shortage of staff.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: Our responsibility goes greater than that. It is around organization, process, checking, all of the things that George talked about.

MR. K. PARSONS: I understand what you are saying, but are the proper people in place now to make sure that all this organization is in place so people know where everything is?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes. The organization, in our view, is now right sized with the addition of a number of individuals who we have mentioned. We live in an environment, as well, where there is constant adjustment around this as needs are identified. For example, one of the things we are looking at is busing and supports that we may need there.

The Department of Education and the government have been supportive as we have been identifying needs and doing the right sizing that we can. Of course, we always have to understand that all of these extremely important efforts must also be balanced against staff and support that are needed in other areas, in the learning areas with teachers and so on. There needs to be as well priorities with fire and life safety, and air quality, and those things obviously taking a high priority. We live in a complex system with many needs.

To your question, we believe at this point that the organization has been right sized.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Parsons.

I would like to take about a ten minute break and come back with Mr. Kirby. We have been sitting for an hour-and-a-half and some people may need to take a – but only a ten minute break because hopefully we will conclude today.

It is a big subject matter with a lot of witnesses and a lot of questioners. If we could take a ten minute break and come back at 11:10 o'clock.

CHAIR: We will continue with Mr. Kirby.

MR. KIRBY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back again to the responses provided in the July 24 document. I am wondering, after reading over all of this, what would be the approximate cost – and you can give me a ballpark figure, but I do not think the Auditor General likes ballpark figures – of the implementation of the new on-line timesheet system for support staff?

MR. FELTHAM: The approximate cost, there are a number of different things that go into it. The software itself and the work from our consultants was in the order of, I would say, at least initially, $15,000 or so. Since then, of course, there has been a little bit of consultation in terms of rolling out the plan. Exactly what that cost is, I could not say for sure here today, but it is not a substantial follow-up cost, I guess, is what I am trying to say.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

I am just wondering: are there any other controls that have been put in place since the release of the report of the Auditor General to ensure compliance with compensation policies? Is there anything beyond what was noted in the July 24 response?

MR. KEEPING: There is a two-part process that I see. One is the on-line time piece, where we can also put in the leave request. The second part of it is purchasing an alert system. We deliberately delayed that a little bit until we can get the on-line time piece straightened out. As Brian referenced, there is a two-part thing. You have to get software and then you have to implement it in a slow, systematic way so that all people who are using the system understand how to use it properly.

The second part we are looking at is called an alert system. The initial cost of what we have looked at, and we have had some discussion with vendors, was around $3,500, I do believe. The second part is to have that alert system that will trigger your ten days are not used, those kinds of things, or your step progressions need to be here. It will alert us when employees are not receiving the correct – the leaves are not done. There are eight days and they need ten, so we can alert people you are two days short and those kinds of things.

There is a two-part piece: The on-line implementation, and then the alert system that would come in after, once we have that part figured out and done right. That would be my response to that.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

In the response to question 3 regarding requirements, approval procedures for employee travel, and travel claim reimbursement, I am wondering: Is this administered using an electronic system of some sort?

WINTESS: No, not at this point in time.

MR. KIRBY: Would you say that it would be additional technology or some information technological tool would more suitably meet the needs of the Western School District when it comes to the administration of travel claims?

MR. FELTHAM: The addition of software is on our list of projects to get completed. Possibly this school year we will have something that could address that particular issue, which would certainly eliminate some of the errors that might occur in addition and those types of things.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

I listened with great interest to the questions from the Member for Bay of Islands regarding temporary employees at the district. The Auditor General quite comprehensively comments on the hiring of temporary employees in the report, but with respect to a different department which has some areas of business that are previously a part of the Department of Education. I do respect the fact that the temporary hiring is something that is under the purview of the administration at the Western School District but this is something that has been raised with me from time to time and raised from time to time by public servants at all levels.

I was wondering, with respect to hiring practices within the Western School District: Dr. Elliott, to your knowledge, have Western School District officials ever received any direction from the Minister of Education, or the minister's staff, or any other executive level of the government regarding the hiring of particular individuals for temporary positions within the Western School District? Has any direction ever been provided with respect to the hiring of particular individuals?

DR. ELLIOTT: I want to make sure I understand your question correctly. Are you asking whether somebody at the department level would –

MR. KIRBY: Make recommendations regarding the hiring of particular individuals.

DR. ELLIOTT: – make recommendations that a particular individual be hired? Absolutely not.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: That is within our mandate under the Schools Act. There has never been, in my entire time as director of the Western School District, that kind of representation. Indeed, if it were made, I would not be in a position to honour the request.

MR. KIRBY: You could say the same thing then about the hiring of permanent staff? That applies to the hiring of permanent staff as well as temporary?

DR. ELLIOTT: That would be correct.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: No, just to say for those attending who may not – and I know you do Mr. Kirby, but those who may not know entirely the distinction.

We have a Schools Act with the duties, obligations and accountabilities of school boards. As well, references the authorities of the minister and the Department of Education. Quite clearly, our judgements – and according to the collective agreements as well – around hiring are at the local board level, both permanent and temporary.

MR. KIRBY: Good, I am happy to hear that.

I am also interested in the role of the Department of Education with respect to the findings of the Auditor General, more generally speaking. In 2004, government decided to merge three school districts into the current Western School District, and it has been described here this morning as a massive district. This review is, as you have acknowledged, the first since the amalgamation. Surely, the Department of Education has monitored various aspects of the work of the Western School District over the past eight years or so.

I am wondering, to your knowledge, were officials in the Department of Education aware of any of the issues that were raised in the report of the Auditor General? Were these issues that the Department of Education, the minister, staff, and the department were generally aware of?

DR. ELLIOTT: They were aware of some of the issues because the support that we received to rectify them was from the Department of Education. For example, we would have had conversations around the challenges in purchasing and meeting the Public Tender Act, and the volume now involved in purchasing and so on. Out of that, it was the Department of Education that provided the funding to hire a purchasing agent. Likewise, concerns that would have been expressed, I think mutually by boards, around financial controls and so on. Out of that, again, the Province responded by giving us the capacity to hire an internal auditor.

I would say that one of our main issues, it may not be referenced as much in the report, would be the tremendous obligations that we have now with enhanced parental expectations – and quite rightly, parents should have them – dealing, in some cases, with older buildings and building new – a tremendous responsibility upon our maintenance and facilities division and areas around not only building but fire and life safety and so on. There has been much dialog about this, much of it emanating from our leadership at the department with reminding us of the importance of safety issues and the provision of appropriate operations managers and so on to help us in that.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Kirby.

A government member.

MR. CROSS: It is my turn now. I guess being the last of six and a couple of people going through a couple of times in between, a lot of the questions that you have identified, or I might have identified have already been asked and I think delved into. I would have liked to have interjected a few times but, again, the questioner at each time probably supplemented the question with something that piqued my curiosity.

One of the areas that is not totally covered yet is the whole idea of capital assets. I know first when the story broke, when the report was issued and it hit the media, then you know what they were going to look for, issues whereby with capital assets and see things like TVs, VCRs, or patio sets. Things like that, that are not accounted for, misplaced or whatever.

Some of the recommendations from the Auditor General's report are along that line with capital assets, policies and procedures there. I certainly commend you for the strength and breadth of your answers to the questions that were there. It makes the job now a lot more difficult to dig into things that are not there because you have answered most of it.

With regard to in your distinct, and looking at page 62, now you have about $2 million in land assets; $186 million in buildings; furniture and equipment, $12 million, and all of these. It is a humongous chore to keep everything together.

How has this come together and the fact that a lot of your assets now in the sense of tagging and when they were not tagged, keeping and maintaining the records of these and disposal of these, how has that come together? Can you elaborate on it a bit for me, please?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Cross, I will begin the answer and probably ask my colleague, Brian King, to add supplementary information.

The district views this area as being very important, one that requires time and attention. The district currently has a tangible capital asset ledger which identifies assets, for example, for furniture and equipment beyond $15,000, and buildings and land beyond $50,000. We have all of those items identified and tied into our general ledger system. When we look at things that are termed moveable fixed assets, we have begun a process to identify assets like that.

Prior to the Auditor General, we were able to have a list of computers, and we have about 4,500 computers in our district. Those were identified and tagged. All of our photocopiers were identified and tagged. We have about 849 interactive white boards, those were identified and tagged. Things in technology were tagged and identified, and a process in place to ensure their whereabouts.

With respect to moving forward, we have a plan for other assets and that plan involves the development of software. That is now complete. During the late spring, early summer, we were able to implement a software package and tackle our largest school to identify the capital assets in that building. That was Corner Brook Regional High with more than 1,000 children. Now we have a plan to move that into our other sixty-four schools in a very brisk way this year. The goal then, once they are identified and they are tied to our ledger system, of course, is to have our internal auditor conduct the appropriate auditing procedures around those assets.

I am not sure if Mr. King would add further, but that will be my opening remarks on that one.

MR. KING: No, I think that pretty much covers it.

For sure, our tangible capital assets are straightened away now. There were one or two omissions and errors that the Auditor General helped us correct. We have done that.

As Brian mentioned, the biggest piece left to do is to tackle the variety and number of assets in all of our buildings, schools and regional offices combined, and the bus depot, and roll out this internally developed piece of software that will help us capture the opening balances and manage changes to those listings as well as years unfold.

MR. CROSS: Okay.

When assets are removed from this inventory system, it is like a big, cumbersome thing to get it all together and have it there. As computers are taken out of the system and as these things are moved, they would be taken off the inventory as efficiently as they are getting on there now?

MR. FELTHAM: The district has a capital asset disposal policy. That policy has been communicated to all stakeholders. All of our sixty-five sites are fully aware of the process. They have the required forms, and they work with our accounting staff to ensure the appropriate documentation is written up. Then of course the entries into our system are made.

MR. CROSS: Okay.

Part of capital assets sometimes, too, is buildings and land. There are times when something as large as a school is closed down or a piece of land is no longer needed, disposal of that – how is that done? I know that can also be a costly venture when a school might be shut down. To try to keep the building in a standard I suppose or a standing whereby it is able to be either tendered, sold, or whatever in a good quality requires it be heated for a while and all these things, maintained. Is there a procedure to expedite the closure, removal, and disposal of buildings?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Cross, that is a very important question. We certainly pay a lot of attention to schools when they close. Our first order of business is to ensure that the assets that are there are identified and transferred to the receiving schools. Then we have a plan that is worked through the school board around tendering these properties as quickly as possible.

What we find, regrettably, is that the documentation around ownership and transfer – so title to a property is sometimes not as clear. The process to dispose of a school becomes complicated because there is not enough documentation from years past to support what we need to do; therefore, the process is stalled. This year, we disposed of five schools through a public process. We are pleased to have those move away from us because they are costing money to keep them repaired.

MR. CROSS: Okay. I am satisfied and comfortable there.

I will defer to Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Yes, and thank you again.

I will just keep going through on page 33, just to ensure and have it on the record that things are complying with the proper procedures and following with the AGs. I just go to the bottom, "2 teaching positions were filled without any documentation in the competition file to indicate that a competition had been conducted for the 2010-11 school year. Although District staff indicated the vacancies occurred after 1 August, there was no documentation in the file to support this."

Is it now the procedure of the school board to ensure that documentation is put in the file, so if there are questions asked to ensure that it is done?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it is.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

In that case, was there proper documentation to show that it was open – does the documentation support that the position was filled? The AG says that there was no documentation to show that the vacancies occurred after August 1. Is there documentation now to show that the vacancies did come up after August 1?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

On the next page, "…the District created and filled positions without the required Treasury Board classification approval being requested. In 4 other instances, the District filled positions that had not been classified until after the employees had been appointed to the positions. Time periods range from 1.5 to 51 months after the position was created and filled."

Has that been taken care of now, that any position cannot be filled until you get the reclassification from the Treasury Board, or can you explain what happened there?

DR. ELLIOTT: The short answer is yes, it has been taken care of. I would describe what occurred here as a kind of a mutual challenge that we had provincially around classification with the new boards in the beginning, and then with the addition of positions – there were new positions. There was at one point then the need to establish or re-establish a Hay classification committee.

I guess I would put it this way, given the challenges that we had at the beginning, we had challenges in getting all the documentation together, likewise, the approving mechanisms, if I can call them those, were also under a stage of development. So, we did have a situation at one time with new positions that we just had to have; we had to move on. I am happy to say that those procedures, provincially, are now operating, the committee is operating with the appropriate representation, and that we ourselves now have a practice where individuals are not actually hired until classification has occurred.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, good.

I will just go through the next one: Compensation. In two instances, there was no documentation that the required approval of the Director of Education or the Board of Directors of the Western School Board was obtained for upscale hiring. Can you explain this?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Thank you for that. Again, this is a documentation issue. The Director of Education did approve – I did approve the upscale hiring. The various documents were brought to me by the Assistant Director of Human Resources, and we discussed it and I did it. The problem was documentation. That is not to say that there may not be something in his notes or mine around that meeting, but the point is that the documentation was not in the appropriate file where it should have been.

MR. JOYCE: The documentation was completed and the approval was given? Just for the record.

DR. ELLIOTT: Oh yes, the approval was given, and it was within our authority to do the approval. It is an issue, though, of being able to pick up that file, Mr. Joyce, and find all of that in the file. That is what we now believe we have rectified.

MR. JOYCE: The next one, "The District did not follow the direction of the Department of Education in compensating a former Assistant Director of Finance when the school districts were reduced from 11 to 5 districts. As a result, the employee was overpaid $97,308 for the period September 2004 to December 2010."

Has the school board made any approach to try to recoup this money, or is there some agreement with the Department of Education or the Treasury Board that you will not recoup these funds, and why was it done?

DR. ELLIOTT: May I take the last part first and give a bit of context in this and then go to the recouping piece, the recuperating piece?

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: I guess I have to take you back to the context of 2004 which was when this occurred. We, as a school district at that time began, as George had said, with one employee, moved from there to the hiring of assistants and to other positions. It was during a time when, contrary to what people thought might have happened in which there would be a lot of scrambling for positions – in fact, many people left the Province and took various packages. There was not availability for some of those positions in the way that one might have anticipated with the consolidation of three boards.

I just want to make, as an aside here –

MR. JOYCE: I understand that, but the thing was the direction from the Department of Education. Did the department direct you not to do it? It says here from the AG report: did not follow the direction of the Department of Education. So, it is $97,000 because the department –

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, and I think if we go into the fuller report from the AG as well as our responses, it sheds more light on that. What this is about is that there is a letter from the Department of Education that outlines how red circling should be done. The interpretation of that letter made at that time by the school district in consultation with the Department of Education was that we were on sound grounds to red circle that particular employee.

MR. JOYCE: Can you provide us with that letter also, to the Public Accounts? I am sure it is on file.

DR. ELLIOTT: No, there would not be a letter on that. That would have been discussions around the interpretation of the original letter and of the situation. That is a decision that was made.

The Auditor General views it differently. He interprets the mandate of the letter differently. Obviously we respect what has been provided by the Auditor General, but that was done at that time.

I wanted to say, by the way, in passing as well that the different views on this could have been avoided. The candidate in the file we hired at that time was the only eligible candidate. If we had done it as an upscale hiring, we would not even be talking about it today. Everything could have been done within that way. Nevertheless, we did it as a red circling.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I ask the Auditor General: Is it your interpretation also that the Department of Education at the time of the directive was not to go ahead with that scale of pay?

MR. PADDON: It would be difficult for me to interpret what the Department of Education's intent was. All we would say is that there was a directive from the department to the school boards as to how employees would be red circled. The issue here is the interpretation of what – my understanding is – normal retirement date is. I suspect, as Dr. Elliott has said, this is a point where we would agree to disagree. We would have a particular interpretation of what normal retirement date is and I suspect part of the discussion was around how you would interpret that.

MR. JOYCE: Dr. Elliott, you are saying you had discussions but there is nothing to confirm that your discussions were saying: Here is the directive we are sending out to you and forget that directive, but go ahead and do what you are going to do.

DR. ELLIOTT: No, I would put it this way: The shared interpretation of the directive at that time was that it allowed us to do –

MR. JOYCE: They did not send another directive out to clarify it.

DR. ELLIOTT: No.

Again, I would need to put this in the context of the times. I think it was March that the announcement was made. We were all in a mad scramble to get things in place for September. This was a position on which the busing, the safety, the school facilities issues for a whole zone of our district was unfilled and we were – I do not exactly remember the date – well into late summer at that time. That is the context; nevertheless, at the time, the decisions made by the individuals involved were that we were operating within the parameters of the policy.

MR. JOYCE: I am assuming then because you felt that you were that there was never any intent to try to recoup this $97,000 (inaudible) –

DR. ELLIOTT: Obviously, with all of these issues, we do seek legal advice. We have on this and it is still with our lawyer, but initial indications, to us, might seem to be that since this was done in good faith with the employee and there would not be a record at the time of employment of our need to recoup, that might be somewhat difficult. That is a process that is not concluded at this point.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

Just in the next item that the AG brought up, "In 2 instances employee salaries were adjusted retroactively after the positions were classified by Treasury Board but the change was incorrectly applied before the effective date resulting in an overpayment…."

I understand sometimes how this can happen. Are there procedures in place now so it does not happen again, that you can be sure that the procedures are followed before things are actually done and direction is given?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, Mr. Joyce, there are. To go back to an answer to a previous question, of course, hiring would not occur now without classification, but we were in that period of time where we needed to move forward. I would say on this, this was not an instance of somebody being hired and then seeking a higher classification and having it applied retroactively; this was a case of individuals who were hired and were not classified.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

A government member.

MR. BRAZIL: I just want to note that I am pleased with the direction the questions are going in and I am very pleased with the detail in the answers. They echo what has been responded there. It is nice to be able to see face to face that people are living up to what they write and what their views are. I am happy with the human resource issues, how they have been answered. No doubt, my colleagues here will have some additional questions relevant to that and the capital assets.

The one I do have a couple of questions around is the fleet maintenance and management – the fleets, the cars, and the reimbursement for travel when it comes to staffing. As a civil servant, at times I was not a big supporter of having massive fleets maintained by government and sitting in parking lots, and felt that employees who were travelling past their employment to get to their main office to take a vehicle to move back out seemed to be a waste of time and energy and money at the time. I do realize you have moved beyond that, that your maintenance employees you have asked that it be part of their prerequisite that they have a vehicle for employment purposes. I think that is a benefit.

I do not think there is a neat, cookie cutter process here. At the end of the day you may have to go back and re-evaluate that, noticing some of the costs there for some maintenance employees in excess of $20,000 a year in their reimbursement. Can you just explain how you have assessed in what cases you keep a vehicle that is in better use for being used by staff for travel, and in which cases that you determine it is better that the employee have their own vehicle and we reimburse them accordingly for kilometres and out-of-pocket expenses relevant to that?

MR. FELTHAM: We have a formal process for that evaluation. The vehicles in question are lodged mainly in the maintenance department; in fact, all of them would be. We have the maintenance supervisor, manager, in conjunction with the internal auditor. What they do is they conduct a current-day assessment of the lease-owned versus the personal vehicles. That assessment occurs each year. We have done two assessments so far and are about to do a third assessment.

The initial two assessments indicated that personal vehicles would make sense. In our third assessment now as time has evolved, we are now studying it a little closer because the gap has narrowed. With respect to the deployment of those vehicles, they are under the direction of the operations manager. The main area here would be in the northern zone from Southern Labrador down to the West Coast, an extensive amount of travel would be involved. That would be probably be some of the comments I would make at this point in time.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, that sounds reasonable.

How often do you review the process: every two years, five years or ten years? In a school district like yours, and in some areas where enrollment is increasing, and in some other areas it is decreasing. Obviously the need for vehicles may change. Is there the standard three years where you would reassess it? Is it based on a contract time?

MR. FELTHAM: We assess these types of situations on a continuous basis, at least annually, in terms of our needs. We do not provide vehicles without a fair study being done and an assessment being done. What we try to do is provide services to schools through the best system we could develop. What we have is maintenance vans that are stocked with the appropriate supplies so when we travel our vast geography we are efficient on the job. When we arrive at a site, the supplies, the equipment we need, is available to complete the repair.

What is so essential here is that we keep schools open because when schools are closed students do not learn. We take every effort to ensure that our support in that regard is at the highest level. Therefore, monitoring should occur at a frequent interval.

MR. BRAZIL: I do notice from the Auditor General's report there were some concerns about the fuel card use. I know you have started a process to address that.

Elaborate a little bit more if you could for me on what your process now is for monitoring the fuel card usage, who would get them, and at what processes.

MR. FELTHAM: I will begin on that subject and perhaps Mr. King may assist.

What I would begin with saying is that the majority of our buses are in the Corner Brook area. What occurs there is that we have bulk purchasing under government standing offer at the bus depot. The fifty or so buses would fuel at our bus depot in Corner Brook. There is a prescribed process for that to occur. The kilometres have to be logged, the number of litres taken would have to be logged, the time of day, and the driver would sign. That would take care of the bulk of the purchases.

Outside of that, we have areas in Deer Lake, Pasadena, and some remote areas where bulk fuelling cannot occur. We now have assigned a fuel card to a bus or individual. Those cards have a PIN and they are monitored by our comptroller. Each month, more regularly, or sometimes a little later, our comptroller would review the use of cards, what cards are active, and proceed in that kind of manner.

We also have all of our gas slips turned in on a regular basis and are identified through an audit process as being acceptable or not. They are certainly matched to our supplier statements to ensure in that regard when we get to the final end of a process that payments are made under the strictest guidelines and paying for the correct amount that is incurred.

I will pause there. I am sure if Mr. King would add further, but that would be my remarks.

MR. KING: Yes, I could add just one thing, I guess, Brian, and Committee members.

We have taken it as we have in some other instances here. We do have an on-line process for our biggest supplier for our credit card deployment. There are a few places within our district that, that particular vender does not service, so we have some alternative pieces there. The on-line piece permits me to directly monitor what cards are active, where they are assigned, what sorts of activity are occurring on them. We have also issued some memos to managers and to all people driving of what types of things are eligible to be purchased with this card; 99 per cent of it, of course, is fuel. There may be the odd piece for a repair, like wiper wash or something like that.

Yes, we are in a good position to take care of the custodianship of those cards going forward.

MR. BRAZIL: Thank you.

Just take me through, if you did identify some discrepancies there, what would be the process to deal with that before it got too out of hand and became a black eye in the school district, or a particular bus driver, company or individuals.

MR. KING: If anomalies are found, we will want to investigate what they are, get to the bottom of why they occurred. Based on that judgement, if it was deemed that there was just some undue sort of negligence on the part of the employee then we would address that with some further discipline. If it was an honest error or something like that, well, there is a sort of progressive step to how we would deal with it. It might be something comes in writing and then sort of further discipline from there.

In terms of making sure that we do not have little incidents like this happen again, like I said, before payments are going to be released, any anomalies will be addressed and understood and corrective measures in place before we make any sort of undue payments. We would not want to have that happen at any point.

MR. FELTHAM: (Inaudible) our accounting clerks are the first line of defence with respect to purchasing and reviewing invoices. We have taken time to sit with them, to talk to them about the types of things that are permissible, things that are not permissible, and what they should do in the event they discover an item that is not permissible. That communication has certainly enhanced the integrity of the system and we believe quite strongly now that there would not be any item go through that should not go through.

MR. BRAZIL: Okay, well that clarifies that, and I am happy with that response.

Mr. Chair, as we are almost close to lunch hour, I am quite content with the questions I have asked and the answers I have gotten.

CHAIR: I will invite Mr. Kirby to use his ten minutes and then we will break for lunch, because at the end of the day, people will want to fly, want to get moving, and I think Mr. Kirby has had two opportunities, but Mr. Joyce has had three this morning. So, if Mr. Kirby would like to take his ten minutes, then we will break for lunch.

MR. KIRBY: Thanks, Mr. Bennett.

Reading over the report, looking at the responses, listening to your representation here today, the report shows quite a number of incidents where there is a lack of adherence, or there has been a lack of adherence, or less than careful adherence, if you will, to policies and procedures that are pretty standard for government and public agencies in Newfoundland and Labrador. I appreciate the district's work to improve those areas that were identified by the Auditor General, but I am also interested to understand if the district has or had in the past a work culture that does not necessarily see the importance of following all of these policies and procedures as set forward by government in rules and regulations and legislation and so on.

Based on the responses that I have heard this morning, it seems to me to suggest that the size of the Western School District, or at least the amalgamation of the three predecessor districts, the boards are at the heart of the problem. I am wondering what the district considers to be the reason for those instances that are cited by the Auditor General, in terms of following proper procedures and policies and so on. It seems to me that the district has an unwieldy size, or it has been unwieldy dealing with the amalgamation. Would you care to comment on that?

DR. ELLIOTT: The first thing I would say is that there are many processes and procedures in place, and was at the time of the audit. So, you are not suggesting – and if you were I would not agree – that, if I can say it here, the arse is out of her.

To your question, is there a culture? No, I do not believe so. On the contrary, I think there is a culture of trying to do things right because procedures, for the most part, are procedures around fairness. There is a reason for procedures. The values of our school district in our strategic plan and in everything else would be around those values of fairness and effectiveness. I would not say that of hither of the three originating districts.

To your point then, for those things – and we may have different views of the extent of them. For those things that need improvement, what might be the reason? I will identify some of these. One would be size. Not that our size is insurmountable, but the fact that we were consolidating not two, but three financial systems, three cultures as well with regard to a way of doing things.

I will just give you a little example; in the days when we sent out actual paper cheques, one of those originating districts had the practice of sending them out unsealed, the other sent them out sealed. We ended up with the employee working on this from the district that sent them out unsealed, they all went out unsealed and it became a major kind of issue in the district. What is the district doing now sending – that is just an example of all of the little things that would need to come together. So size is a factor.

Secondly, the increased volume, not because of size but because of almost geometrically increased volume. Two things happened in our history. One was that the districts were consolidated in 2004. Then with the increased funding in education, school budgets were doubled. Where a district might have been lucky to be getting one new school at any one time, we would have been building three or four simultaneously. With the air quality issues, there was a lot of maintenance, so a tremendous volume going through our shop, if I can put it that way.

Quite honestly, Sir, I would see the volume of initiatives, good initiatives, not just in maintenance and so on but in learning initiatives, new programs and so on. I would see that volume as placing a greater challenge, a good challenge, but a greater challenge than the actual size itself. We have this influx coming in, in accounting, in purchasing, in all of this.

An observation I would make is that I think organizations generally get into good initiatives, perhaps sometimes without a full analysis of the actual number and capacity of human resources necessary to carry off the initiatives. So we had that period of time before, what I call the right sizing, when we started to add and to bring things together.

Is there a tendency, if there is a priority, for our board sometimes to place an issue of students not being able to read and write above insuring that we have all of our staplers tagged? I would say yes, that culture is there. I am not defending it necessarily as a culture because we need to do both. There is no reason why we cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

I do think one of the features of our district is that we have placed a tremendous focus on student learning so that in many ways we are, on many of the tests, ahead of the Province and certainly very respectable provincially in an area that I would argue has no disadvantages, but it does not have any special advantages over other areas of the Province. That is there in the culture. Has some of that taken priority over writing and revising policy? I would admit to that.

Other reasons I would give, Mr. Kirby, would be also the proliferation, if I can call it that, of – and this is a good thing too – the regulatory environment. Many of the things that we are dealing with are procedures and regulations and so on, that have been in the making during the time of the Western School District, in particular when we look at things like issues around safety, around busing safety.

We are in an environment of increasing activity, and good activity, around safety regulations, accounting regulations, access to privacy and information regulations, and so on. We cannot underestimate either the change that has occurred in the last decade provincially, and I would say nationally as well, around the kinds of things that quite rightly organizations are asked to attend to and to take notice of.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

Maybe I will just ask one further question. In your response to the committee's question about the district's land-value assessments, the response said, "The external auditor and the District are satisfied that its current land schedule fairly represents the District's interests." This may be nothing, but the wording fairly caught my eye.

I am just wondering: Does this mean that the valuation of lands is accurate and complete? Could you use those words to describe the land valuation that the district now has on record? Is it accurate and complete or is it fairly accurate and complete?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Kirby, I will answer it this way; I will begin by saying we engaged our external auditor, which is independent, with our internal auditor to look at a plan to put the proper valuations on the land. Some of the land has been with the district from the 1960s and, no doubt, there would be a challenge trying to put the right value on those types of properties, so we engaged two auditors.

What we saw as a baseline was using municipal assessments as a catalyst to help us derive what land value would be in the final result. Those municipal assessments were done and were used to give us the final calculation for land values. That was signed off by our internal auditor and our external auditor as an independent process.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Kirby.

We will break for lunch right now. I would like for everybody to come back at 1:20 o'clock – not 1:30 but 1:20 o'clock. We may use the ten minutes at the end of the day and maybe we will not.

As for visitors here, there is a small cafeteria downstairs. If you enjoy a ten minute walk, there is a better cafeteria in the West wing. It has a bigger array of good food, Spartan surroundings and fair prices.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Order, please!

We said 1:20 p.m.; I thank everybody. It is 1:19 p.m., now it is 1:20 p.m. so we should start with a government member and continue our questioning.

MR. S. COLLINS: Just a quick look again at the cellphone piece there on page 36. I am just wondering, it makes mention in the third bullet point down, regarding a senior executive who was provided with a cellphone due to the fact he was going on vacation and something that he could retrieve his phone calls and e-mails with. Obviously, that was identified as an issue here and the fact that after the vacation was over the bills continued to pile on, even though the phone was not being used.

I am just wondering, in instances now where you have an executive going on vacation or whatever the case is, those types of circumstance, what would be provided then? Do you have phones on stand-by for those types of purposes or is it a practice that you still continue with getting a phone for someone who is going on vacation or whatever the case would be?

DR. ELLIOTT: Our checks and balances would be such now that would not occur for a phone to be inactive for that length of time. Let me just say a word, if I might, about that particular situation.

MR. S. COLLINS: Sure.

DR. ELLIOTT: First, although you have not indicated in your question, any time anyone associates the word vacation with a cellphone, people sometimes – so let me just say that it is typical for our senior managers and, in fact, some of our senior maintenance staff to be in contact when they are out of the country. In fact, some of them are asked by supervisors to be so. Just to clarify again, that all of these bills are there. To be very clear, there is absolutely no indication here or no one is alleging that it is for other than business use.

In this particular case, the employee was going to an area of the world where the regular cellphone did not work. A BlackBerry was provided, it did work. We were at a period of time where we were investigating whether we would go into BlackBerrys. I think maybe government officials had them at that time, we were looking at it. At that time there were two BlackBerrys in the organization and this was one of them.

We sort of assumed that with this telephone it would be used by other people going on trips or whatever the case might be, or that maybe everybody might go to BlackBerrys. That did not occur, so there was a period of time in which, unfortunately, that phone was not in use. Subsequently, of course, the decision was made not to go the route of BlackBerrys for everybody. We still have not gone the route of that kind of technology for everyone, but our senior staff are now using iPhones instead.

MR. S. COLLINS: Okay, thanks for the clarity. Sometimes it is left to your imagination or it is left to interpretation when you read it here, just on a few lines, so I appreciate the clarity.

The point just above that, the second point regarding the four cellphones that were not used or were underutilized. Is it common practice to have a number of phones on hand? Would these phones be provided to certain individuals and that would be their phone, or is it something like a community phone? Four community phones and if you need them you take them. How does that work?

DR. ELLIOTT: I am going to let Brian and his staff speak in a moment to the broader question, but just to put that in context again, as we did in our report, the reasons for some of the cellphones being underutilized were very logical reasons. For example, we run an outdoor education program at a camp called Killdevil, which is outside of regular telephone reach. That camp runs at a particular time of the year, so you do have activity on the phone, only periodically, and only if there is some emergency. We would be negligent if we had a group of students out in the woods and we had not arranged some kind of telephone setup, even if it only happens very rarely. So, some of our instances were like that. I am saying there are occasions when it makes sense to have a phone that has very little usage on it.

Brian, there may be some larger issues here that you might wish to speak to.

MR. KING: Just to say, Dr. Elliott, another example might be, we tried in Southern Labrador having our technician up there who travels through various schools, use his cellphone as well, but it did not work as well as we had planned; therefore, that cellphone was discontinued. It is just another example of the use.

MR. S. COLLINS: It is nice to have that context, because you are left to interpret it yourself when you just read these lines, and it can be misinterpreted. So I appreciate the context.

That is it for me, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The next question is from Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Yes. I was just wondering, Mr. Chair, about the letters for approval that we were going to try to get from the school board for the permission with the tendering. Remember, you were going to try to get them during the lunch break.

MS BATTCOCK: They have not been e-mailed to me yet, but I hope to have them received soon.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, so we do not have them yet?

MS BATTCOCK: No.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, because I thought that was what we were waiting on, but I guess we do not have them yet.

CHAIR: When they arrive, hopefully they can be brought to the attention of the committee members. It may run too late, but we may be able to get them at the break. It would be more useful to have them before we conclude today, because I would really like to finish the hearing today. If we are left with loose ends, we would not want to have to come back for half a day or a couple of hours. So, if it is possible, it would be desirable. If you do not receive them, then simply we will have to look at them when they do show up.

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

I am going to Leave and Overtime, on page 34. There is no need to get into it, but just for the record so we can have it.

Is the procedure in place now that all leave and all overtime is accounted for and approved in the proper manner as before when it was not so much, and there was not a handle on it?

MR. FELTHAM: Absolutely, Mr. Joyce. We have overtime now pre-approved and documented. That was the issue brought forward by the Auditor General, that we did not document the pre-approval of overtime.

As well, we have now developed a very formal, on-line time sheet system which permits employees to key in their work time on-line. The time goes through a series of checks and balances. The first, of course, is to the supervisor to confirm that indeed the time was worked. Once it is approved by the supervisor, it then proceeds into the district office into the accounting section where it also undergoes a series of audits from the payroll clerk to our accountant, and final payroll approval by the comptroller.

MR. JOYCE: I go to page 37 and I will just go through some of this, "A review of one school's expenditures by an external consultant identified the following issues and inappropriate expenditures over six fiscal years". In big terms it is not a lot, but the big thing is the procedures are in place.

The only question is – and I am sure the controls are in place now for this as you mentioned – who would have approved all these expenditures? Someone just does not say: We are going to walk in and do this. Someone has to approve it and get the money from somewhere, somehow.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, I am assuming you are referring to the list on top of page 37.

MR. JOYCE: Yes, I am.

DR. ELLIOTT: I appreciate the opportunity to say a little bit about this one. What occurred here, as I am sure the Auditor General can verify, is that the Auditor General in going through our files identified what for us was an ongoing investigation around this issue. Just to be clear, these are not items the Auditor General's office discovered. These are items we discovered in the Western School District and had our own processes and ultimately the RCMP involved in investigation.

We first became aware of it when the Human Resources Division became involved initially around some issues of conflict in the school. As that was examined, as we would when there are those issues in the organization, it seemed to come to light that some people might have felt there were some financial irregularities as well. That, combined with the arrival of a new principal on the scene, led us to investigate further, both internally and then an external consultant and then the RCMP.

As best as I can make out, Sir, to come back to your question, these purchases would have been – let me put it this way; I have to be careful here. We would surmise that these would have been approved by the principal of the day. Certainly, we were not aware of it at the district level and the investigation ensued when we became aware of it.

MR. JOYCE: Were all of these incidents at the same school?

DR. ELLIOTT: That is correct, Sir.

MR. JOYCE: Every one of these here are at the same school?

DR. ELLIOTT: That is correct, Sir.

In other words, the Auditor General accessed a file indicating an ongoing investigation that we were doing with support of the RCMP on this particular incident. We were quite concerned about that at the time that the Auditor General arrived.

MR. JOYCE: Just going through it very quickly: $700, $4,200, $3,200; how would a principal – and I am just asking for my own information, I guess – have access to $11,000 and $12,000 and it not be picked up somehow? Aren't most funds that come through the school through the school board – especially at one school? If it was spread out you can see a difference with small things, but at one school – $700, $4,200, $3,300, $760, one TV, a VCR, a DVD player, a digital camera, a desk, and a laptop computer. How would a principal have access to $11,000 and the school board not know it? Just for my own information.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, I am going to just say one thing about that and then Brian or Brian may wish to add to it. One of the things that are going on here as well is, as we know, schools engage in a significant amount of fundraising. Schools engage in canteen sales and so on. I want to be very clear. We regard all of these as funds to be spent appropriately. I am not at all suggesting that this would justify any expenditure like this, but then when we look at the total financial picture we are looking at a variety of funding sources, one that would come from the board and others in other ways.

Brian, you might wish to add something to that.

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce, would you want me to add further commentary?

MR. JOYCE: No, I was just wondering, just for the information, because – and I think Dr. Elliott passed on the information – most people think that money would come from the school board, but the context that you could have a fundraising event that the school board would not even know how much money came in from that fundraising event, that would stay at the school. I do not think every fundraiser – because I know in my past every fundraiser is not overseen by the school board. It may be overseen by the principal, but not the school board itself.

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce, schools, as Dr. Elliott alluded to, would be involved in a high number of activities for fundraising on a number of fronts. We have sixty-five schools, without Southern Labrador, Western Newfoundland and the Southwest Coast, and the challenge for us was, with those activities going on, how does existing staff, I guess, proceed to do the necessary due diligence with those types of accounts.

I think through the funding from the Department of Education, the hiring of an internal auditor was the answer because the internal auditor became engaged in this particular area, it was something we had worked on for a number of months, but with the hiring of the internal auditor we are now able to have our eyes and our processes carried out in these schools as well, so the person can actually go in and actually perform the necessary audits.

I would like to say as well, just for the reassurances of the people here, we now have standard accounting procedures, we have a standard chart of accounts, we have school accounting manuals, we have in-serviced every principal, every vice-principal, every secretary in the Western School District with respect to school accounting.

When they arrive at the school sometimes they may not be versed in the technical details of school accounting, but we make it a priority to do that. As well, we start in August with new principals and new staff to orient them to the kind of things they should have a watchful eye for in their schools. I must say, I think that is paying quite good dividends. I think right now – I did mention the number this morning – we have fifty-two school audits completed. I was reminded it might have been forty-six, so I am not quite sure of the number, but it is a high number of schools that have been audited by our internal auditor.

MR. JOYCE: Just two more things on that. Was any of that equipment ever recovered after?

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, most of it was not. There was one item on that list that was found and identified, but it became so unclear as to whether the item had been or not been paid for by the individual that we were not able, despite going through the normal channels, to actually retrieve it. There was some doubt as to whether perhaps that particular item had been bought by an individual.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

Mr. Chair, just again – and the officials can correct me – right now, there are auditors in place to pick up on this kind of stuff. We feel comfortable that most of these incidents now will be picked up if there was any abuse like this in the future.

MR. FELTHAM: Yes, Mr. Joyce, there is a high degree of confidence that school accounting systems are in a different place, and controls are at a very high level.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

A government member.

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just have a couple of questions to ask you guys; a couple of quick answers, actually.

When it comes to membership fees, could you explain the procedure for paying your membership fees?

DR. ELLIOTT: Which page are you on?

MR. K. PARSONS: I am just looking at your response there – it just says you have procedures in place, and I am just wondering what those procedures are.

MR. FELTHAM: Yes, the procedures will be as follows: We develop a list of employees that are eligible for reimbursement of those fees, the list then is reviewed by the Director of Education, and written approval is provided for payment. That written approval is provided to our accounting staff, and from there the process unfolds.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay, that is good.

I have a question about your mileage and logbooks. I know you said the Auditor General was really concerned about the monitoring – that there was no supervisor signing off on the logbooks and stuff like that. What procedure is in place now for when you are doing your mileage, and the logbooks for mileage?

MR. FELTHAM: The procedures we have in place now would be for logbooks to be submitted to the district office on a monthly basis, those are reviewed by the internal auditor, and we now will be asking supervisors to sign them as well. So, it will review dual review.

MR. K. PARSONS: If the person does not have anything signed, obviously they do not get their mileage – is that the process?

MR. FELTHAM: Some of these vehicles are board-owned. Those that are by way of travel claim, we make a requirement so if as a condition of their employment they are not fulfilling this obligation, then we would have to look at what types of discipline would be required. We ask it of employees. If they choose not to do it, then they are not in compliance with the wishes of the district, which could present certain challenges.

MR. K. PARSONS: Okay.

Another little question I have there is about your inventory counts, the overall inventory. I know it is not very important to have everything, but it is nice to have an inventory done – you say periodically that you are going to do it. What is the time frame that you are going to have on inventory? It is nice to know what you do have as your assets. No matter if it is a stapler or if it is a photocopier, it is good to have a record of that.

MR. FELTHAM: We believe that is an important function for the district office to identify its capital assets. Right now for example, we have all of our tangible capital assets, those pieces of furniture and equipment above $15,000, and land above $50,000 listed, recorded, and that is in our system. We also have all of our computers, interactive whiteboards, switches, routers, photocopiers, all logged as well into a database.

We have a new software system for completing the other assets such as student desks and those types of items. That software is written. We have our first school completed. I am pleased to say that it went really well.

Once we roll out the plan which we believe can be accomplished this school year, all sixty-five schools will have assets recorded. We then plan to ask for an internal auditor to do the necessary things in doing her review, ensuring that there is compliance with our policies.

MR. K. PARSONS: My last question is to Dr. Elliott. It is a broad question. I know government has invested a lot of money in education in the Province in the last number of years. The budgets have gone really high, with our expenditures in education with new schools and infrastructure and everything and curriculum, you name it. I just want you to give me a view on what you think about the spending that has been done as regards to education, how it is improving, or are there ways it can improve, or what it is doing for our overall education in the Province.

DR. ELLIOTT: I believe that the spending has been targeted and intelligent. One of the areas that I think has had the greatest impact, and that pleases me the most, is the maintaining of our numbers of teachers, even though our enrolments have declined. There was a statistic that I came across the other day when someone was interviewing me on this matter. I may not have the numbers identical, but to the best of my recollection in 2004, we had eighty-three teachers per 1,000 students. Now, at the moment, we have something in the nature of ninety-three point something per 1,000 students.

I apologize; I could be a little bit off on the numbers. In essence, what has been done is that teacher resources have been targeted to students who need the most support in Special Education, has been targeted to decreasing class size now with the class caps. That has been a very expensive proposition, but certainly a good one. We have quite a number of targeted initiatives as well in programs and technology and so on and so forth.

I think we came into a time with increasing public expectation around air quality and around the appropriateness of physical facilities. A major, major and very necessary part of expenditure – and I referenced it this morning in terms of the stress – we say the good stress – that it puts on us in our financial operations and so on, but a major part of that has been the building of new schools in our district, the redevelopment of schools, and the general, I guess, refurbishment and attention to repair and maintenance. Are we all perfect at this point? No, it is ongoing, but that has been a very, very significant part as well.

The Province has valued, as the districts have valued, professional development. That sometimes gets overlooked but, really, it is the thing that keeps it all going. The capacity to be able to ensure that all of the staff in our organization, and I do not mean just teachers, I mean maintenance people, bus drivers, student assistants and so on, that there is an opportunity to learn and grow. We have been able to do a considerable amount of professional development over the period of time.

Could the education system use more? Yes, I could take the entire budget. Are we in a spot where we can more confidently say that we are trying to do a better job for students, especially those who need to be rescued from a future that is not so bright? Yes, I think if we use these dollars right we have the capacity to do so.

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you very much.

That is it for me, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Mr. Kirby.

MR. KIRBY: Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I was interested in the discussion around fundraising because I continue to have some concerns around school fundraising for essential school items. There is an official policy on school fundraising in the Western School District, I assume, is there?

Does the Western School District have its own policy on fundraising and for the accounting of fundraised monies?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Kirby, from an accounting perspective, there would be a policy around that. The school accounting policy would speak to the treatment of the funds.

MR. KIRBY: Would it be on a school-by-school basis then and each individual school would have its own policy on school fundraising?

MR. FELTHAM: No, there would be a general district policy on school accounting.

DR. ELLIOTT: That is around the use of the funds, the accounting. That would be a general part of it.

MR. KIRBY: The documents I have seen indicate the per-student expenditure at the Western School District right now is somewhere in the order of $11,700-odd per student.

Would that figure include school fundraising or would it not include school fundraising?

MR. FELTHAM: It would not.

MR. KIRBY: Is there any way to ascertain what it would be if school fundraising was included?

MR. FELTHAM: We have a school accounting system that could provide that number for all schools. There is a standard chart of accounts so that number could be brought into our financial records. At the present time, it is not a requirement of the department to add school fundraising to the financial statements.

MR. KIRBY: Is it possible to get that figure, then, the per-student expenditure including fundraising?

MR. FELTHAM: Yes. I am going to turn around and look at my comptroller as well.

MR. KING: Yes, (inaudible).

MR. KIRBY: So it is correct to assume that figure is more than $11,700 per student if you add fundraising to it.

MR. FELTHAM: Yes.

MR. KIRBY: Sorry to sound obtuse about that.

I was interested to read about the procedure you reported for implementing tracking costs related to board-owned vehicles. I was interested because it does not indicate a software information technology tracking system, and that is much like the conversation we had earlier around travel and travel claim processes.

I do note that you have a computerized system for tracking capital now and for tracking this time sheet system that the district has implemented on-line. There are instances where the district has chosen to use information technology. Are there operational or financial reasons for acting on the capital and time sheet but not on the vehicles and the travel? Are you restricted by funds in using technology in the other two areas to account for assets or spending?

MR. FELTHAM: With respect to service vehicles, those are contained in our general ledger systems, so there would be an account for each service vehicle. The area where we would still require growth is with our busing fleet. We are working with the Department of Education to look at an all-encompassing software system that could do bus routing, that could store information about buses and those kinds of things.

Our busing budget is about $10 million, and there are about sixty-three board-owned buses and about 187 contracts in place. It is a large area but I think with the acquisition of software as you are referring to, I think it would certainly aid in our work.

MR. KIRBY: I just have one further question for the moment. I noted there was an article in a western newspaper this summer, you discussed earlier about the closing of schools and the processes that occur when that takes place. There was an article earlier this summer about the potential for one of the four schools in the Stephenville area to be closing September 2013. Are there processes then underway to consider whether or not that will occur for September 2013?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, Mr. Kirby, I would be surprised if it could occur that fast. It is because of the very processes that must occur. We have a clearly defined set of processes in a document, the name of which I am trying to remember. Anyway, it is a document on our Web site that talks about proposals for school reorganization and areas to be studied, and that looks at particular areas.

The process goes something like this: In a larger area such as Stephenville, we normally do what I call an informal consultation first. It is a sit-down with each of the school councils, it is an open discussion around the issues, and that is a part of the information-gathering stage. From that, a report is written by district staff, it goes to the board and the board, out of that, decides, if it is going to move forward at all, to make certain notices of motion as to reorganization, closure, whatever.

Following the notices of motion, then that goes out to a broad consultation period or a broader consultation, it goes out to the public, there is a notification to the community, and there is at least a thirty-day period where the board is receiving input and receiving ideas.

While the board is not required to do this, our pattern in the Western School District has also been, towards the end of that period, to have a public meeting, public sessions, in which groups or individuals can make presentations to the board. This goes through a very careful process before decisions are made.

MR. KIRBY: I have a particular interest in all-day kindergarten. It would appear to me, with the declining enrolment in that area at least, the Stephenville area, that you would appear to have capacity and space to accommodate additional classes for all-day kindergarteners if we were to go with that at some point in the future.

CHAIR: Mr. Kirby, that may be getting into an area of policy.

MR. KIRBY: Sure.

CHAIR: I would love to hear about the board's plans for all-day Kindergarten in a different role because I am the Education critic, but I am not sure that it can be demonstrated to be relevant to the Auditor General's report or anything that flows from it.

MR. KIRBY: I am pretty sure that is correct.

CHAIR: Okay, thank you.

I will ask you then to withdraw the question.

DR. ELLIOTT: You mean I cannot talk about full-day Kindergarten?

WITNESS: That is correct.

CHAIR: Do you have more questions?

MR. KIRBY: No.

CHAIR: A member from government.

MR. CROSS: Again, it is a pretty short issue on my part right now, but because of my background – I have come through as a school administrator – I spent thirty-one years in schools and classrooms, I have relived, in my head this morning and this afternoon, some of the issues and challenges there. I guess I have a certain distinct appreciation for just about everything that we have heard today and discussed. I know as a teacher – my background is training and education – all of a sudden to become a vice-principal and you are in charge of the accounts for the school, but you have no accounting background that has a distinct problem. It is almost like the pilot of our 747 being a teacher rather than a pilot. So, we do not need to go there.

The only point I would like to get to is there is one item with issues with contracts tendered on page 61 – and I am sure you have an answer for this, and I am probably going to just give you an opportunity to put it on record. There was an issue highlighted here where there were thirteen contractors who may not have had proof of registration or certain Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission standards in place, and all the other good things that are supposed to come with this – and we know how emergency transportation sometimes comes in place, especially with students with special transportation needs, and things like that. Just to put it on record, how confident are you now with your mechanisms and controls you have in place that you will not revisit any of these types of issues later?

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Cross, I can have a try at that one.

We have developed a software package in-house that tracks all the required documentation for contracts, in particular for busing; we are moving now into snow clearing. It prints the appropriate reports to advise us that for contract 2, this piece of documentation is missing. From that, we, of course call the contractor and insist that the documentation be delivered.

It is an area of challenge, because we are trying to work within the confines of the contract. Some of the contracts are short. Sometimes it is difficult getting the information from the bus contractors, for example. So, there is a substantially improved system, but there are still some challenges around getting documentation in certain areas.

MR. CROSS: Okay.

I just reserve right to probably call back if something pops up, but currently I have exhausted my queries. We thank you for your honesty and efforts, and I really appreciated the length and breadth of the answers that were provided in writing before we got here, and it helped make the job easier today.

Thank you.

MR. FELTHAM: Thank you.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Cross.

Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you again.

I am just going to go through some of the things in the report that I noticed, and just ask questions on. On page 38 – and I will come back to this a little later, also – "The District could not readily identify what land was included in the land cost of $2.0 million reported on its 2010 financial statements."

Has the board identified this $2 million now?

MR. FELTHAM: Yes, Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Can I ask what it was that was missed?

MR. FELTHAM: What occurred was through various consolidations over the years there were parcels of land recorded in the general ledger system. Let us assume, when boards came together just some short years ago, a number came with the GL system, let us say $500,000 but there is no details as to what that land was for. What we had to do is engage our external auditor along with our internal auditor and comptroller to work through each parcel of land, to assign proper values and do the proper identifications. All those identifications have been done.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

The next one down, "A leased building owned by the District was not included on the District's building asset listing and financial statements." Is that rectified?

MR. FELTHAM: I am sorry Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Third, "A leased building owned by the District was not included on the District's building asset listing and financial statements."

MR. FELTHAM: That building has been sold; it is no longer property of the district.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

It was not there, but it was put back on and now it is sold?

MR. FELTHAM: Correct; it was an oversight in the beginning.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

There is the next one, a leased building, lease agreement – and I will come back to that later – expired in 2004. My understanding is that was never increased or decreased or never looked at? I think that building has been sold since.

DR. ELLIOTT: I will make a start on that and Brian may need to add there.

This was a situation; it was an unusual lease, Mr. Joyce, in which the tenant paid all costs inside and outside, including doing the roof and these sorts of things. To compare it to what one would expect to get through normal renting, it was not really a correct comparison. I should say as well that during the period of time that the tenant was there, the board was considering what to do with this property and considering putting it on the market, and subsequently did so.

Brian, do you wish to add anything to that?

MR. FELTHAM: No, the only thing I am going to add, Dr. Elliott, would be if you add in the repairs completed by the tenant along with the rate in one year that we did that study, we were well above what the appraiser said the building would rent for. That gave us some comfort in the fact that we were, after the study, leasing the building for market rate value.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, there is an important connection in that I did not make, and I apologize. As the building became older, the contribution of the tenant in its upkeep became greater. In our view, this was balancing out the fact we had not raised the rent.

MR. JOYCE: Is that the only building or lease you had in the school district that operated that way? Mostly, if you own a building, you are responsible for the maintenance, upkeep, and repairs. How was that arranged? That is very unusual.

MR. FELTHAM: What occurred, I think, was the building that was closed some years ago, from an assessment perspective, the life of the building had ended because it closed. It required major system upgrades, mechanical, electrical, and those kinds of things. The district did not want to invest money into a building it had just closed for a tenant. Our line of work is student achievement, and that message from Dr. Elliott right down to all of our clerical staff is well heard. We did not want to invest money into an older building. We felt the only way it could work would be if the tenant took on responsibility for taking a condemned, older building and bringing it up to a standard that would pass city regulations.

MR. JOYCE: From my understanding, that building has since been sold.

MR. FELTHAM: That is correct.

MR. JOYCE: Again, I will just give the board the opportunity that now all of the leased assets and all of the assets they own in Corner Brook are now monitored properly and are in the proper inventory settings so that they do know every property you own and lease.

MR. FELTHAM: Yes, Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: I am going to go page 45. I know I discussed this earlier, but I need this just put on the record somehow. As we know, and I am sure the board hears it, too, on a regular basis in Corner Brook, sometimes it is harder for a younger student or a younger teacher to get a position at the board sometimes. People get frustrated if they do not get a position or other things.

After going through page 45, "5 of 6 files did not have documentation of a rating system/matrix for the candidates interviewed. As a result, the District could not demonstrate that the most suitable applicant was selected."

Again, because I know I hear it, can we all feel assured now that the documentation was there, but it was just that it was not in the proper file? It is very important because when you hire somebody out in the school board the perception is, right or wrong, sometimes it is not the best candidate. I am not saying it is or I am not saying it is not, but the perception is. When you see the Auditor General say that you go through a matrix system and that is not included in the file, you say: Well, how do you know the best candidate was selected or not selected? Because even in the Public Service Commission have a system that, by the time you are finished, they can sit say here is the best candidate.

MR. KEEPING: Mr. Joyce, in all of the hiring decisions that we make, we certainly consider all of the factors: the experiences, the qualifications, the interview, and the overall experience in all those categories. At this point now we have direction to make sure that when we do these interviews that we do put the matrix system in place that is placed in the competition file.

The other part, as well, is all of the information that was used to make the decision was in different places. For example, parts would have been put into their personnel files, their resumes, because it references a number of things there that they were looking for, but the process now is to, once we complete our discussions and rank the interviews and look at all the different categories, yes, there is a system that we are implementing that will have these matrix system –

MR. JOYCE: Right here where the Auditor General mentioned five of the six files did not have documentation, is the documentation in those files now?

MR. KEEPING: Yes, that is what we are doing. All of the documentation is to be placed in the competition file (inaudible) –

MR. JOYCE: In hiring at the school board, and I do not know of course because I was never on the hiring with the school board, how much is it subjective or is it the matrix system, with the hiring procedures?

MR. KEEPING: What I will say to you is, when you go into an interview you are looking for certain things in a question. So, you really have I guess what you would call a rubric developed. If there is a question on a particular topic, we have ‘look fors' developed that we will say here are the things that we would be looking for in the answers. So it is objective, but it is our assessment of what would be required in that particular question.

Once we go down through, did they mention this aspect of school development? Did they mention that student interventions are an important part of being a principal? We put the ‘look fors' in the question now and we can at least document what we are looking for. It is not just (inaudible) –

MR. JOYCE: Again, I would be remiss if I did not bring up what the people mentioned to me. For example, if they are working up in the Northern Peninsula somewhere or somewhere else, down in Burgeo, and the position comes up for Corner Brook, they apply for the same position they had in those places, they cannot get the job, and someone junior gets the job. They are still qualified to go back to the Northern Peninsula or Roddickton somewhere, yet they are not qualified for the same position in Corner Brook and someone junior gets it.

Is it because of the interview process?

DR. ELLIOTT: We work within a collective agreement. I am not sure if I can recall now what I am looking for, but it is hiring based on competence, suitability, and qualifications. Is that it?

WITNESS: Yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: That is what somebody the other day called the golden nugget in our collective agreement. While it respects seniority, it does not tie our selections to seniority. It gives the opportunity to the hiring team to hire the teacher they believe is truly going to be the best teacher for those students in that classroom.

The process we go through, first of all, is the application, even the way the letter is written and so on. Secondly, it the resume and the experience they have. Thirdly, it is how they respond in an interview situation. Fourthly, quite importantly, it is their references. It is how well their principals and the other people who have been working with them indicate they are doing actually in the teaching and learning. Those are the considerations there.

Are there instances when a junior teacher is hired over a more experienced one? Yes, there are. I would not say it is the norm necessarily because normally experience brings with it something that gives you an edge over the less experienced candidate, but it can happen.

The other piece I might add as well in relation to this question, Mr. Joyce and others, is the tremendous number of applicants we have from outside what I will call – do not laugh at this if you are from St. John's – the semi-urban part of our district, for example, Deer Lake, Corner Brook, and Stephenville. We are in an environment where many, many teachers from the more southern regions and the more northern regions in Labrador want to move in those areas.

Sometimes when you think of the hiring we do at the end of the year, you might think: Well, so many teachers retired so you have to hire twenty new ones. It is not like that. There is a massive movement that occurs almost every year with numerous files as people seek positions in other parts of the district. Sometimes we are not always able to accommodate all of the people from Burgeo or L'Anse au Loup who would like to move into those positions.

MR. JOYCE: I am sure you heard it in Corner Brook, too, you see junior people moving in, and you see people with more experience outside Corner Brook who want to get back to Corner Brook. They are not qualified to get the positions in Corner Brook with someone junior, yet they are qualified to go teach somewhere else in the district. Logically, if you are qualified to teach at a school over here, you should be qualified to teach a school here.

I am sure the school board is after hearing this and it was brought to your attention. It is brought to my attention on a regular basis.

MR. KEEPING: Mr. Joyce, we might be mixing up the hiring piece to the bumping piece. Sometimes you might get people who have actually lost positions in the outer regions because the declining enrolments are more substantial so they actually then bump into some of the larger centres. There is the hiring piece, but there is also –

MR. JOYCE: I know the hiring, but I know people who applied for the positions but they cannot get it. It is adding frustration to a lot of these, and not one or two people out, but the ones for eight or ten years who are waiting to get back to Corner Brook. My fear is you are going to lose a lot of those people because they are not going to stick around much more with trying to keep a residence in Corner Brook and getting a position down in Roddickton somewhere or down in Burgeo and hoping to get back into Corner Brook. When the competition comes up they apply again, yet someone junior gets the position. They can go back and teach the same subjects and the same courses at a different school.

What is good for someone up in the Northern Peninsula, Burgeo, or Port aux Basques should be good for Corner Brook if they can teach those students. I just bring that to your attention because I am hearing that, and I am sure you are, too. I am sure it is brought to your attention also.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Joyce.

Can we have a government member?

MR. BRAZIL: I do not have any questions, just some comments. One would be to talk about what Mr. Joyce had talked about. I do understand your challenges there and that interviews are subjective to the point of realizing who the best candidate is. It may have nothing to do with seniority or if they taught the same type of course or program in another town, but it is relevant to what is being asked at that time and what their expertise could do for that particular school or that particular class.

I do appreciate the dilemma you are in. As I said before, as a former civil servant who did a lot of hiring, I do realize if seniority was that, there would be different people in different positions in the House of Assembly also based on the years they have been around versus their capabilities.

What I do want to say, though, is I am very pleased as the Co-Chair from the open discussion and the questions particularly that my learned colleagues have asked relative to addressing the issues the Auditor General had around the Western School District. As I mentioned earlier, I am pleased that you understand and appreciate the Auditor General's report is about not only making you accountable for the monies that are being spent belonging to the taxpayers, but more importantly how you address improving the process that is being used.

With the answers that have been given to the questions that have been put forward, at this point I am quite content. I feel comfortable when we sit down to make a recommendation to the House of Assembly that we enough to be able to say: Things are moving forward and here are the certain things we would like to do.

I would ask the Auditor General from his perspective, because we touched on a lot of things – and there are probably a number of other questions people have to ask, but that is fine – do you get a good sense that things are moving in the direction you would like to see it so when you review in two years, things may be to the point where you can write off this is a done deal or compliancy is in accordance?

MR. PADDON: A couple of broad observations I would make just based on the discussion here today: One is the tone of the discussion and the tone of the answers are very positive, in my view; and also that the tone of the meeting was a forward-looking discussion as opposed to a back casting. The back casting obviously has led to the discussion, but the focus is more on the improvements that have been made and are in the process of being made. From my perspective, that is a very positive outcome of this meeting. I feel comfortable that when we go back in two years we will see some significant changes.

Will they all be made? It remains to be seen. I suspect there will still be areas where there is perhaps some disagreement between ourselves and the school district. I suspect you will never get away from that. Generally speaking, I suspect we will see some progress.

MR. BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Auditor General, and thank you, Dr. Elliott, and your staff, particularly for the professional approach in the answers to the original questions so we would have an idea of exactly where you were and where we would like to see you move, and the openness and the professionalism today when you presented to us. I want to thank you and I will turn it back to Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Mr. Kirby.

MR. KIRBY: I do not have any further questions. I would just like to say thank you to Dr. Elliott and the staff from the Western School District for coming and appearing before the Committee and for being open and candid with us. I hope the Committee will get any documents that have been requested that are outstanding at this point.

Thank you very much.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Sir.

CHAIR: Has the letter that was referred to earlier materialized yet?

MS BATTCOCK: I have not checked my e-mail. I can do that.

CHAIR: Do we have another government member?

MR. K. PARSONS: I would just like to also say thank you very much for coming here today. It was very informative. I really got a lot out of it. Your answers were great. Like I said before, the questions that were given to you beforehand and the explanations that were there were great for us to have beforehand.

Again, thank you very much, and I would like to thank the staff also from the Auditor General's department for coming here today.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you.

I will go back to page 46, on top, and I will just ask for clarification in explaining some of the frustrations I hear in Corner Brook: "3 teaching positions, identified through review of competition summaries, in one junior high school were first temporarily filled in November 2008 without a job competition as permitted under the collective agreement as the positions became vacant after 1 August. However, the positions continued to be filled for the 2009-10 school year without a job competition although the District was aware of the vacancies prior to 1 August of the particular year."

Can you explain that? If indeed that is the fact, you can see the frustration that some of the teachers once someone gets in a position that is theirs.

DR. ELLIOTT: Sure.

Mr. Chair, the part that we very respectfully disagree with the Auditor General staff on this is the line that says "the District was aware of the vacancies prior to 1 August of the particular year." If we go to our response to that, maybe the most succinct way to do it is to just reference it here: As we know, positions that become vacant August 1 may indeed be filled without job competitions according to the collective agreements. I guess we all understand why the reasons that would be.

The three positions in question were fallout vacancies created when an employee of that school was hired in a non-union position at the district. The employee's position, as indicated, was correctly filled by appointment, as were the two fallout positions in that year. So, all of that was correct.

The non-union employee was on one-year probation. This means that the district has a year to determine whether it wishes to keep the employee. It also means that the employee has a year to decide whether or not he, if it is a he, wishes to stay to in the position. Then, having been hired in August and actually having not begun work until October 27, even though he was hired in August, for various reasons did not begin work until then, these decisions by both the district, but even more importantly the employee, again could not have been made until after August 1.

As indicated, it was not a decision of the district, but was dependent on the employee's decisions as to his future preferences. We were then into another year in which – it would be wrong to say that the district knew that this was coming up again. We did not know until August.

MR. JOYCE: For the three positions?

DR. ELLIOTT: Sorry.

MR. JOYCE: For the three positions?

DR. ELLIOTT: That is right, Sir, because you see the other fallout positions are dependent on this one position. What happens is that someone has come into the district office – I guess I will have to be more explicit. Let us say that a principal comes into district office, then somebody moves up into that position, somebody takes the position of the one who has moved up in the position. There is a fallout that comes from this one particular position. That does not happen very often, but it did happen in this case. At each time, we maintained totally within the collective agreement, in that these are decisions that had to be made in August.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thanks.

MR. JOYCE: You can see the frustration of some people not understanding. When you read this here, it is almost like you put someone in the position, then you just keep them in that position.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: That may be some of the frustration that people feel who are trying to get in the school board system somehow.

DR. ELLIOTT: Certainly.

MR. JOYCE: So, it was my chance to clarify that.

I will go to page 82, please – the internal auditor. There are some questions there by the Auditor General about the role of the internal auditor. I will just give the board a chance to clarify that position, what the position was for, and the reason why it was put in place because there are some discrepancies there of what his duties were and what the person was hired for.

MR. FELTHAM: The internal auditor was hired as, I suppose, another set of eyes, another set of experiences, to address areas that we felt needed to be addressed. In our planning for the position, we had noted that school accounting was an area that we wanted addressed. So direction for that area, for example, would have come from my office through the comptroller to do the necessary audit program for our sixty-five schools.

The position could also do work in human resources or work in programs. As we looked at the immediate needs for that position, we felt it was more in the financial section at this current juncture in our development. I think that when we advertised the position, we did advertise it reporting to the Assistant Director of Finance and Administration. We did that because we were targeting the financial areas that we felt we needed the most work in and the most scrutiny. We did provide that intensive work in school accounting and some other system; it is certainly richer and stronger for that.

As we look into the future for that position, I suspect that they will be doing work in other areas, but we really want to target what we believe to be the most problematic areas within our district.

MR. JOYCE: How is the position working out, good? It has not been mentioned here today.

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce, we are so pleased that we have this position to assist us in certainly making sure that money that is entrusted in our care, systems that we are responsible for, can now be checked by a professional in this field. The person is well trained, now is finishing up her internal audit program, and we feel really thankful to government for recognizing the importance of that type of oversight for the district.

MR. JOYCE: I would just ask the AG – and just for the record so we could have it also – do you feel confident that this position is a vital role to the school board to oversee the –

MR. PADDON: I think it would be fair to say that the position that the board has in place and the role that they are doing right now is a piece that is probably well needed and fairly vital. Our comment around the sort of a role of an internal auditor was probably more of a broader piece. Typically, an internal auditor would also audit the general accounting for the school board.

You typically would not have the internal auditor reporting to the person who you are auditing. Our comment was more around the nature of the reporting relationship. If the role of the internal auditor at some point in time expands to also cover the full accounting function, then perhaps the reporting relationship should be to the board of the school board or if there was an audit committee in place, that sort of thing.

MR. JOYCE: You feel that has been corrected now?

MR. PADDON: No, I think from what I can understand the role of the internal auditor right now is still focused on sort of a more narrow area. In that narrow area, perhaps the reporting relationship is fine and adequate. If the role is expanded, then perhaps the reporting relationship should change.

DR. ELLIOTT: It was like that as well of course at the board level for our board budget and our district budget and so on. We engaged the services of an external auditor. What our internal auditor is presently doing –and I agree with the Auditor General, there may be a time when that role needs to expand. At the moment what this individual is doing is – as you say over fifty schools I think have been audited and that is giving us a greater sense of confidence around the financial integrity of each of the schools in our system.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, I am going to go on page 83 and it is part of the Homestay Program. I do not know if the person is here or not, but I can ask someone from the school: How many ATIPP requests do you get in the run of a year?

DR. ELLIOTT: I am sorry, Sir, would you say that again?

MR. JOYCE: How many access to information, ATIPP, requests, do you get in the run of a year?

DR. ELLIOTT: I am pausing on a couple of counts. One is that I am not sure I know the answer, and the individual who would know the answer is not one of our witnesses. The other is that maybe someone could give me some guidance on this. I could take a stab at this, but I know there are some restrictions around us in terms of what we release with regard to ATIPP requests. So, I do not know if anyone has some sense as to whether I am okay in answering the question.

MR. JOYCE: No, just numbers, just ten –

MR. FELTHAM: I could try it, Mr. Joyce.

I was that person at one point in time and there were not a lot of requests, less than ten for sure.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

Of course, being from the area you hear about it – the Homestay Program; in 2008, the ministerial directive to phase out its involvement in the Homestay and Recruitment components of the International Education program by June, 2009. The department hired a person for ATIPPA, a co-ordinator for the school board for ATIPPA. You hear it around Corner Brook and the Auditor General has it in the report that ATIPPA co-ordinator provided all the necessary services related to these five international students, as per our obligations when the students were accepted the previous year.

My question, just for my own information, and the people, is that the directive was to get away from the Homestay Program, the international Homestay Program, yet the ATIPPA person was hired and then they kept in contact and did most of the services for this program that was cancelled by the department. I know in the House of Assembly that was a big issue at the time and all around the Province.

DR. ELLIOTT: A couple of things that may be helpful on that, Mr. Joyce. First of all, when we talk about ATIPP, we are talking about the whole privacy issue as well, so that part of that role would perhaps be bigger than the access to information piece.

On the matter of the Homestay – and I regret that I did not bring the minister's letter today, but the minister's letter certainly gives some flexibility, not in getting out of Homestay but in the time frames in so doing. Everything that we did in that regard was consistent with the letter and, in fact, was in close contact with the minister of the day and the Department of Education. That minister was very aware of the approach that we were taking. There was the recognition that yes, we have to get out of Homestay, but for the commitments that you have already made, you cannot leave students stranded. This is about enhancing safety and decreasing liability. There were certain things, as was outlined in our report, we needed to do. I cannot speak for the minister of the day, but it was not our sense that any of our department colleagues felt that we were in any way outside the directive. In fact, the minister's directive did give a time frame to wind down that particular commitment that the board had taken on.

MR. JOYCE: It says here the directive was by June 2009.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: This is going well beyond that. My question was, this person, whoever was the co-ordinator for this, were they in compliance – and I ask the Auditor General: Do you think that they were in compliance with the directive? Because if you have a position, you assume it is a full-time position, but also to support this Homestay Program over and above your regular duties.

MR. PADDON: I guess it was our position that the Homestay Program was to be concluded by June 2009, then the positions associated with it would have concluded as well.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Joyce, again, we cannot bring everyone as witnesses and this is a particular time that I wish a particular staff member were here, but what I am seeing here in our own response in the report is some reference, in particular, to two Korean students who had attended school in the 2008-2009 school year with the understanding that they would be able to return in 2009-2010 to graduate from our school system.

This was an important commitment that the district felt it needed to honour, while at the same time ensuring adherence to the minister's directive regarding recruitment and Homestay. What happened was the district staff made contact with the Korean agent to indicate that they would need to make contact with the Homestay families to determine if they would be interested in independently providing Homestay for these two students in the 2009-2010 school year. These families did agree to provide Homestay, independent of involvement of district staff, and the two students were able to stay in our district and graduate in June 2010.

MR. JOYCE: My question is because the ATIPPA position just came up that year – from my understanding it was the first year of the position. I guess there is some confusion there where the Auditor General said the co-ordinator provided all the necessary services related to these five international students. Either the parents did it or the ATIPPA co-ordinator did it.

DR. ELLIOTT: I think we are getting to the crux of the issue now, and I apologize for perhaps in my own head not getting there sooner. You see, there are still some obligations of the district with regard to international students. They are not Homestay obligations; we are well out of Homestay. I think what this paragraph is referring to does not include Homestay.

For example, we would have understandings with companies who now perform the service that school districts once performed. It is very, very minimal but there are still occasions where if we have for example, thirty international students in our system, where some things would come to our attention that we would need to have somebody who is at least part ways knowledgeable about international education. I think that is the kind of thing that is referred to here, not the Homestay Program.

MR. JOYCE: Was there ever an ATIPPA person before this Homestay Program was cancelled? When was that person hired? When did the position come? When was the person hired at the school board?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, my memory is being tested now on this particular one. I know that there was someone responsible for ATIPPA. Brian, you were first, I believe, in the beginning.

MR. FELTHAM: Yes.

DR. ELLIOTT: Then of course as it grew – no, I am sorry, here is what happened. The person who was the international education consultant was also the ATIPPA person; they are one in the same. That individual for a period of time after we were out of Homestay and after we were out of these things around international education, continued with the ATIPPA part of the position and took on other duties at the same time. That is what –

MR. JOYCE: This person was ATIPPA plus the international Homestay person? Was the position just designated ATIPPA? It was not there earlier.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Here would be my understanding, Sir, and again it is one of the areas that we did not bring a backup witness on this. My understanding would be that with the ATIPPA piece when it first came out, it was Brian Feltham. We quickly saw, as this became more important, particularly the privacy part of it, that this was something bigger than someone could do just off the side of their plate, as it were. So, my recollection is, but I could be incorrect, that was added to the duties of the international education individual prior to the minister's directive.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: So, we have an individual then who is doing the international education, and also doing ATIPPA. Then, with the minister's directive, the individual stays, she keeps the ATIPPA, she takes on other duties, and she is also the one who is referenced here as doing what is called as the minimal duties that still need to be done for international education.

All of this by the way – international education was a phase-out and a change in direction. I guess what I need to say is that the implementation of this was done in consultation with the minister's office, and certainly, had the minister at any time felt that we were not in compliance with her directive, I am very confident that would have been indicated to us.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, would it be helpful if – I mean I recognize that Dr. Elliott was going from memory.

MR. JOYCE: No, that is fine.

CHAIR: He could clarify it in a letter if it turns out not to be right.

MR. JOYCE: No, no, that is fine.

CHAIR: If it is not correct, you could just clarify it in a letter.

MR. JOYCE: I understand it is memory.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: We all understand that, yes.

CHAIR: Okay.

MR. JOYCE: Page 91, and I will clue up there for a little while. Sold Building, on page 91, "The report identified one building that was not removed from the District's financial records after it was sold. The building was the former carpenter shop, located in Corner Brook, which was an abandoned older building with minimal or no financial value." I know it as the Tibbo Building. Was that building sold, can you tell me how much, and if it was put on public tender when it was sold?

MR. FELTHAM: I do not recall the amount, Mr. Joyce. It was done through a public process.

MR. JOYCE: You are not sure the amount that it was sold for.

MR. FELTHAM: I am looking at Dr. Elliott, I do not know if you recall.

DR. ELLIOTT: I cannot remember the amount, Sir. All I can tell you is that my recollection is that I was surprised that it was as high as it was, because the building and the buyer knew all of this – obviously, would have to. The building had been vacated because it was sinking into the ground, the ground in that area being comprised largely of sawdust at the time when the mill was in operation. I am surprised that we did not have to pay to take it down. We did get an amount for that. It was certainly more than I expected.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: The carpenter shop was overlooked.

MR. JOYCE: Yes.

I just have a few more questions. I do not know about anybody else on the Committee wants to intervene –

CHAIR: It is 2:40 p.m. We could take a short break and then you can ask your questions.

MR. JOYCE: I have about another ten or fifteen minutes. We can take a short break.

CHAIR: We will take a short break. I am pretty certain that I will have some questions when the Committee members finish, not an awful lot but I could go for twenty minutes or more.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, ten minutes.

CHAIR: Thank you.

Ten minutes.

CHAIR: Order, please!

During the break we have been provided with another document; members may or may not have questions on it. I am advised that there is yet another – apparently the incorrect one came and the correct one will arrive. We may or may not get that one today. If we do, we can look at it. If we do not get it today it will become part of the file and we will have to deal with it, however we would have – it may show up or it may not show up; meanwhile, we do have another document right now.

When we broke, Mr. Joyce was asking questions and other members had indicated that they thought they were finished. I do not think it would be fair to hold you to that in any event because I might have questions which might give rise to questions from other committee members. So before I go back to Mr. Joyce, did any government members have any questions?

Mr. Kirby do you have any questions?

MR. KIRBY: I just want to ask a question about this sheet we have been handed out here. This looks like all of the contracts for busing, correct, within the Western School District?

MS BATTCOCK: It does not include all of them

MR. KIRBY: It does not include all of them. It is just striking here, these distances are one-way distances or two-way distance, is it?

MS BATTCOCK: I would not be able to speak to that, no.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

Maybe people who are from the region are of some familiarity, because Raleigh to St. Anthony is forty-nine kilometres, I assume, Howley to Deer Lake, fifty kilometres?

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Kirby, I am from Raleigh. What did you say about Raleigh to St. Anthony?

MR. KIRBY: Raleigh to St. Anthony, forty-nine kilometres?

DR. ELLIOTT: I am pretty certain that would be return.

MR. KIRBY: Two ways, okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: Unless they have lengthened the road over there.

MR. KIRBY: I doubt that has happened, despite all the paving that has gone on.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. KIRBY: Thank you.

CHAIR: Mr. Kirby, did you have more questions?

MR. KIRBY: Nothing further at this time.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, do you have questions?

MR. JOYCE: I am just curious; this was provided just so they would know what bus routes? The information that I requested was a letter from the Department of Education giving permission to extend the contracts without permission to three years. I thought that was the letter we were trying to get.

MS BATTCOCK: This is the approval letter that we have. In a lot of cases, the approvals are verbal and then followed up with an e-mail. This would have been the approval follow up.

MR. JOYCE: This is the approval from Department of Education to the school board saying that there was no need to extend the hundreds of thousands of dollars of tendering?

MS BATTCOCK: This is the only approval letter that we have.

MR. JOYCE: Well, Mr. Chair, I think, and this is my opinion now and I am sure – I ask the Auditor General, I do not know if the Auditor General has seen this. I do not know if we can provide the Auditor General with a copy.

CHAIR: Oh, yes, we should. Three copies if we have them available.

MR. JOYCE: You gave them the time. I –

CHAIR: I understand that there is yet another letter. What does that letter relate to, the other letter?

MS BATTCOCK: The other letter?

CHAIR: Yes.

MS BATTCOCK: It would be similar in nature.

CHAIR: It relates to busing?

MS BATTCOCK: The special needs one for $77,000.

CHAIR: Mr. Joyce, is that the one that you are asking about?

MR. JOYCE: It was, but I will just ask the Auditor General – and in my opinion now, I am no auditor – would that comply with extending the tenders of $356,000 as an approval letter?

MR. PADDON: This in and of itself would not appear to me to be authorization to contradict the Public Tender Act.

MR. JOYCE: Yes, and then this was the question that was brought up earlier about extending the Public Tender Act without the accordance. The department and the school board mentioned that they had permission from the Department of Education.

I do not know if Dr. Elliott would like to respond to that, because this here is: Here is the bus routes, thanks, see you later. It is a lot of money that was being spent by the school board and I am not sure if they received the best bang for the buck.

MR. FELTHAM: I can maybe add some clarity, I suppose. Perhaps I will confuse it more.

The issue of student transportation, when contracts are being considered for the upcoming school year, is essentially a process whereby district staff would talk with the Department of Education staff to assess what contracts are able to be renewed, what contracts should be tendered. What we did in this particular case, through a discussion with the department – the person responsible for student transportation – was agree upon the process for this particular contract.

It was a contract that had just finished a five-year period that had two buses – and I am going to ask, Sir, to correct me if I am not precise in this. There were two buses covering two separate routes. What occurred was a discussion around reorganization of that particular system, which happened to be in Southern Labrador. The discussion led to the decision that a bus would come off from that particular area.

In order to find efficiencies for the students travelling on the other bus they extended the route for the other contract, which was held by the same person. Now you have a contract with one bus doing its old route and then there was a decision that would allow the bus to travel where the other bus was going to pick up the other students. It was an extension or a changeover that was done.

The interpretation and understandings at the time would have been that in this case, I think under section 5 of the Public Tender Act, this would be permissible. That was the discussions that were had and it was a practice of the department and board to engage in a dialogue and when you reorganize an area then you could do what we were doing. It was certainly understood that it was in compliance with the Public Tender Act.

Having said that, this year, to be quite honest about it, we have now embarked upon a new process when we are reorganizing areas to find efficiencies. By the way, this move probably saved the Province about a half a million dollars. When we are doing that, our rule of thumb now is we will go to public tender to dispel any uncertainties about interpreting the Public Tender Act.

MR. JOYCE: I find it confusing because here it says you had permission from the Department of Education, and obviously there was no permission. There might have been permission saying go ahead and do what you are doing, a wink and a nod or something. When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds, there has to be something in writing.

I know in the House of Assembly here if there is any time we go against the Public Tender Act or if there is a reason, it is always presented in the House and the explanation behind it, or you seek permission not to go ahead with it and it is tabled in the House of Assembly. The board's response here is that it was approved by the Department of Education. It is a lot of money.

I just refer to Dr. Elliott's comments that were just brought to my attention that a lot of this stuff was growing pains. This was in 2008, 2009, and 2010 which was six or seven years after the amalgamation. It is a bit more than growing pains. It is a lot of money.

MR. FELTHAM: I can say, Mr. Joyce, the interpretation of the Public Tender Act by those involved was to complete the actions that were completed. The view was it was in compliance with the Public Tender Act. We say that with the utmost respect. That is what we believe was the correct process. We do not have other legal interpretations of it, but we were engaged in a process with the department which is continuing today.

For example, in this current school year no contracts were allowed to be considered until further discussions were occurring at the Department of Education. Busing this year was held up because we are waiting for that direction from the Department of Education. Once that direction was received, we proceeded to go to public tender for all of our contracts. We can say to the Assembly now with a quite high degree of confidence that matters where we go in and there is reorganization we will be proceeding to public tender.

MR. JOYCE: Down below again when you are talking about "$77,968 and $280,125 respectively, the District renewed these contracts on the direction it received from the Department of Education." When you add it all up, we are getting now $700,000 and $800,000 tenders and not public tendering, and you hear it because people are out asking why this is not put out to tender.

DR. ELLIOTT: If I could, Mr. Joyce, just to say I would not at all, personally, put this in the category of anything to do with growing pains or anything of that nature.

MR. JOYCE: I just read your comments where you said all this stuff is just growing pains.

DR. ELLIOTT: Certainly. Yes, I understand.

MR. JOYCE: This is six years later.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I understand.

What I am hearing here is a mutual interpretation of the Public Tender Act by the board and by the department upon which this action was based. Now, whether that interpretation needed to be reviewed is certainly a good question I think, but this was not done out of lack of attention or anything like that. It was an interpretation shared between the two parties as to the interpretation of the Public Tender Act.

MR. JOYCE: I ask the Auditor General: Do you feel comfortable now that things will be followed by the Public Tender Act?

MR PADDON: Based on the comments that I just heard from Mr. Feltham, yes. I just add perhaps some clarity, perhaps not. My understanding around the nature of these two items, the $77,000 and the $280,000 that are on the bottom of page 86, these were renewals of existing contracts. In and of themselves, I believe the renewals would not have posed any problems. Our issue was that there were then changes to the routes that, in our view, amounted to a change in the specifications related to the contract and because of the perhaps of the significant nature of those changes, they should have been retendered.

I suspect, not to put words in anybody's mouth, but that was the nature of the interpretation issue then that the district had around whether it needed to be retendered or whether the contract could be renewed. It was our view that the nature of the change in specifications was significant enough to require a new tender.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I will just ask the board – once more a chance to clarify and to pass on to the Committee, so we can pass on to the public in the House of Assembly, that now procedures are put in place that this will not happen again or will be followed by the Public Tender Act, or be more clarification if necessary from the department, or direction.

MR. FELTHAM: Mr. Joyce, we have adopted a process that will see these go to public tender. I would like to add: I think when you look at how the Public Tender Act could have handled this, if we had done the renewal so that there was a five-year contract that was up for renewal, had we done the renewal and signed it off as one stage and then after that we were to do the change order, it would be permissible under the Public Tender Act. I think that is with certainty.

What we did do was the sequencing of it all at one time. In the Auditor General's mind, it was causing us to break the Public Tender Act. I am not trying to put words in the Auditor General's statements here, but from what I understand in talking to the audit team, that would have been process that would sort this issue out, despite saving $500,000 for the Province. Because, simply, we could have said, let us let these routes continue and renew them straight up. We would have had two buses, two contracts, and we would not have been in the Auditor General's report.

We sought interpretation to manage a situation on what we thought would be the best advice, the best process. We talked with people who could assist us, and we felt that this past practice for years was the right solution. On reflection, looking at it into the future, the cleaner way to do this is to go to public tender.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

MR. FELTHAM: As a staff, that is the practice that we implemented this past summer.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

I go to page 52, and again I am just asking and bringing it up and just see what direction – the travel claims not used by senior employees.

"From July 2009 to December 2010, a senior executive's travel expenses totalled $31,035; however, no travel claims were submitted and approved to support this expense. The employee's travel expenses such as accommodations, rental cars and airfare were directly billed to the District and paid by purchase orders. Furthermore, meals were charged directly to hotel bills and as a result, District staff could not readily determine whether proper per diem rates were claimed."

I am not trying to give anybody the impression that there was something wrong done here. Are there procedures put in place now that would follow proper protocol that when you travel you put in the travel voucher?

DR. ELLIOTT: The answer to that is yes, Mr. Chair, that the appropriate travel claims are being submitted. While the travel claim is submitted – how shall I put it – the notion of booking flights directly and being paid, booking hotels directly and being paid, we would have seen that as a very common and, in fact, efficient practice, as opposed to the employee paying the hotel bill or the flight out of his own pocket and putting it on a travel claim. So, I would say that it is normal in the submission of travel claims still for some things to be billed directly; but, yes, travel claims are being submitted.

If you will give me a moment to find that particular place here – no, unless there is a follow-up from you, Sir, I will end my comments there.

MR. JOYCE: No. It is just to give the board an opportunity to express to the committee that proper protocols are in place now and that procedures will be followed as per the standards and the protocol set out by the board and the Department of Education.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, certainly.

I would just like to mention as well, that under that same item there are amounts of $59 for three people, $39 for three people, and $23 for two people in meal receipts that had not indicated who the people were. That has been rectified, both for those instances and into the future as well. For those particular instances, verification through the travel of other individuals, in fact, these other individuals were travelling and a part of the same meeting.

MR. JOYCE: Okay, thank you.

I just have a few more questions. I have to ask this one because I heard your – I am sure some schools grow and you mentioned the amount of funds for teacher-student ratio, but I find out in the Corner Brook area and in some places, and I will use Sacred Heart for an example. There were two teacher positions taken away this year. I think there was one put back into Sacred Heart.

If the ratio is dropping, why are there still teaching positions taken away from schools? I will give you a chance to explain that because it was brought to my attention by several parents.

DR. ELLIOTT: Certainly.

Mr. Joyce, here would be the statistical situation, and then we can break it abroad from there. Since 2004, in the Western School District our student population has dropped 23 per cent. Our teacher population has been cut in the vicinity of 7 to 8 per cent. That is where we get the fact that there are more teachers per pupil, but if we just take that 7 per cent that we are talking about, then obviously, yes, there are schools in our district that have teacher reductions. Those schools that have teacher reductions have a better pupil-teacher ratio than they would have had in 2004, but their decline in student population has been so great that the teachers have had to be lost.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I will go on to page 33, right at the Executive Summary. I am going to ask a question and probably it cannot be given – in the first paragraph. "For the 2009-10 school year the District had 1,458 teachers, and 770 administrative and support staff…"

How many people work at the school board in Corner Brook and for the Western School Board now? Is there a number of how many people work at the school board, and is there any way you can get a flow chart? I know you probably cannot do it, but a flow chart to see what all these positions are? How many people work at the school board now?

DR. ELLIOTT: I do not have that number, Mr. Joyce. I could certainly get it for you. I expect that somewhere it is sort of publicly accessible if we went into the right site, but we can get that for you.

MR. JOYCE: Can you get a flow chart of what positions? I do not want names, positions that are at the school board?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: You can get that?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: Could I, in saying this as well, since I have the opportunity in speaking to a diverse group this afternoon, is that it is one of the easiest things to do, not just in education but anywhere else, to say that: Oh, well, let's put all of our support in the classroom – and that appeals, and so on. There must be a place for what I would call out of classroom supports.

Out of classroom supports includes the principal, it includes individuals in our school who assess and help particular children with reading, and it includes the district office support. In fact, it includes, as well, the important individuals who, as we move forward, are helping us to improve in some of the various situations that we have talked about today.

So, I think that all of us, as hopefully all of us in our various roles, should understand the importance of the out of classroom position, both at district office and in the school.

MR. JOYCE: I think most of us agree with that, but I think when the realignment of the school boards was put in place it cut down on some of the administration. I know, rightly or wrongly – I do not know and this is why I am asking the question – is that when you see the school board moving on from the office that was on Wellington Street, then there is another office somewhere else and they are full. Now they are looking for space somewhere else. The perception is that there are a lot of people being hired at the school board.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Rightly or wrongly, when you go from a building and that building is full, then another building and that building is full, and then you go into another building and that building is getting full and you have to do renovations. Rightly or wrongly, there are a lot of people being hired at the school board.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Now, is it: why or why not? That is something that – and the other question – I do not know if you want to respond to that, because I was going to ask another question.

DR. ELLIOTT: Well, if I could.

MR. JOYCE: Sure, go ahead.

DR. ELLIOTT: In our situation in Corner Brook, just to say this. I do not think it is as much about expansion. It is that we are in a very small, old building. We have the same office that was occupied by the Roman Catholic School Board back in a time when certainly the number of teachers and the population and so on would have been very small compared to the combined district over the geography that I have described today. So, therefore, yes, we are hoping to rectify this in the future, but we do have individuals at our bus depot, bus transportation supervisor and so on. We have some employees in S.D. Cook as well.

The reason for what some would think as the overflow in fact has more to do with the fact that in the building we are in, we just do not have the space for the combined district. Understand now, of course, what happens is that all of the financial pieces and all of that piece is now located in the one spot; whereas, at one time it was distributed over three.

MR. JOYCE: When you provide us with a flow chart and the numbers that are working at the school board, could you also provide us what was in 2004 in comparison to what was at the school board?

The school board then was for the whole Western, St. Anthony, and Stephenville area, for the three districts. I know now it is just one.

DR. ELLIOTT: To the best of our ability, Sir, we will provide that.

Just to say, I do not know at this point what the result will be. If indeed it were to show that the numbers are similar, that would only be a reflection of what is required in an era of increased initiatives and also of increased accountability, of which our process here today is a demonstration.

MR. JOYCE: The last question I will ask on that, and it was brought to my attention and I said I would bring it up: People who are working with the school board and doing the work of the school board – are any of those positions classified as teaching positions?

There are a certain number of teachers that is allocated for the schools. Are any of those teaching positions now working at the school board that are still classified as teachers, yet doing work for the school board?

DR. ELLIOTT: Each individual working at the school board is approved by the Minister of Education. I will give you an example. We have an individual at our school board office in a position called enrichment co-ordinator. That individual is working at a teacher's salary. In that sense, you say: Is she a teacher? Well, yes, I guess she is a teacher. She has a teacher's salary.

In order for us to have that individual doing her important work, it has to be approved by the Department of Education. In other words, this is not an environment where I have the latitude, even if I wished to, to go out and decide to take resources from the school and put it at the district office. By ministerial directive, I am not allowed to do that.

MR. JOYCE: I will try to explain my question that was presented to me. If there are 100 teaching positions that were allocated for the district, are those 100 teaching positions, out in the field teaching, are there any of those positions at the board doing work for the board that are still classified as a teaching position?

The concern is, rightly or wrong – and I am not saying this is right or wrong but I said I would ask – is that there are some positions that could be actually classified as a teaching position, but doing work for the school board that is not actually in the classroom which is taking away – again, as I mentioned, cuts in some of the schools, and I know Sacred Heart is one.

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

MR. JOYCE: Cuts in some of the schools where there are teaching positions that are doing work for the school board and not in the classroom – is that the case? Are there any cases like that in the school board?

DR. ELLIOTT: I would say no. I would explain it this way. In the relationship that we have with the Department of Education – and, in fact, one of the individuals who deal with us is in the audience – we have a certain number of teaching units that is given to us. It is well understood what is for the schools as separate from what is specifically approved for us to use at the district office. There is great clarity around that.

Some might make the argument from time to time, well look, that individual at the district office, we always had that; and say well, this person might be well placed there or something like that. Every organization has that. There might be that kind of sentiment. The notion that we are taking something out of a school and using it for district purposes, no, that would not be the case. Everything is designated. We have to do an accounting for every individual at our board office and the use of it is approved.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

I have just a few more. Just for the record, the positions that are given to people at the school board, do they go through a public competition also – all the positions?

DR. ELLIOTT: Oh, yes.

MR. JOYCE: Or, once again, can you just hire someone for a while and let them be in the position, or can we say – and I need it for the record, for us too – all the positions that are at the school board goes through a public competition and the best person is hired for that position?

DR. ELLIOTT: Oh, yes. Many of the people who would work at the board office are unionized employees anyway. They would follow the same collective agreement as someone who was being hired in the school. So, that would be done. Then when we go to non-unionized individuals – if we go to people such as in the positions of my team here – certainly all of that would go through a public competition.

MR. JOYCE: When you mentioned that they are under the collective agreement, if someone applies for the school board, is it done through public competition, or is it just by seniority?

DR. ELLIOTT: If a unionized employee applies for a job at the district office, let's say it is a program specialist for mathematics, they would put in their application much the same as they would for a teaching job – a resume and so on, list their references. We would short list, we would interview, and we would go through the same decision-making process as was described earlier.

MR. JOYCE: Okay.

DR. ELLIOTT: By the way, the same for non-unionized positions as well. The basic recruitment and hiring process, I think, would be the same.

MR. JOYCE: Again, I will clue up by thanking everybody for coming out. I know some of the questions were a bit pointed, and I thank you for the information and bringing it forth.

As Mr. Brazil mentioned, our goal is to put forward recommendations to the House and to the Department of Education to help improve the system. Sometimes you think that we are trying to point the fingers, but more times we try to find loopholes where we could fix it. We, as MHAs, we go through it ourselves. This is just a part of the process with the AG, and I thank the AG and all of their staff for your work.

I thank the people at the House because I know that sometimes it is hard to sit down and for us to go through this. Thank you for travelling out and for the information. I look forward to the follow-up information that we are going to get later.

DR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Sir.

CHAIR: Do any government members have any questions?

Mr. Kirby.

MR. KIRBY: I have a couple of questions to clarify, just based on that discussion. I do not know if this is what the Member for Bay of Islands was getting at, but my question would be with respect to staff whose offices, let's say, are headquartered at the board office. Would you say that none of those staff would be counted in the student-teacher ratio for the Western School District? Would that be a correct assumption, that none of the staff whose offices, whose place of work is at the board office, none of those individuals would be used in calculating the student-teacher ratio in the Western School District? In other words, one would not say that the student-teacher ratio is X and include any of those individuals in that calculation. Would that be correct for me to say that?

DR. ELLIOTT: That is a question that I cannot be certain of the answer. I am sure that perhaps it could be provided afterwards, because I do not know really how pupil-teacher ratios are done. I know we can go into the Web site and there they are, and look for the Western School District. I do not have the answer to that question.

I would be fairly confident that when we – I know, for example, that for all of us sitting here, I know for certain that we are not in the pupil-teacher ratio piece. I do not think that program specialists would be but when you get down to an individual, such as the enrichment person that I was talking about who makes a teacher's salary, I am not quite sure how that calculation is done.

MR. KIRBY: How about this? Is the student-teacher ratio, according to the Western School District, for each of the schools in the Western School District and the Western School District overall, is that available from the Western School District? Can you provide the committee with a breakdown of those figures, your overall student-teacher ratio and the student-teacher ratio for each of the individual schools? Is that something you can provide to the committee?

DR. ELLIOTT: Yes, because we have actually done that in presentations to the board. We have to do an allocation to schools. We have to treat them all equally and so on. By the way, I am not saying that the same pupil-teacher ratios necessarily equal treatment all the time. I am not making that equation, but to take the numbers of staff in schools, yes.

MR. KIRBY: That is good. I would like to see that.

The only other question I have is going back to this document with respect to school busing contracts. I just want to understand the process here. As I understand it, there was a conversation or some questions by the Member for Bay of Islands about the process and the statements in here about the Department of Education giving the school district permission to make these decisions around busing. It is in the opinion of the Auditor General that these were outside the Public Tender Act.

In terms of the process here, am I correct to assume that staff at the district office would produce this list by whatever processes, renewals, some new tenders, et cetera, you would produce this list, say e-mail it to an official with the Department of Education, then you would have several telephone conversations, perhaps, and then they would just send an e-mail saying yes, this e-mail would signify that we have had a conversation and we have confirmed that we are in agreement on these contracts?

That is what you mean when you say this was approved by the Department of Education? Is that correct?

MS BATTCOCK: This spreadsheet actually was done by the department and sent to us. They gather that information from the financials that we send in every year. This was generated from the department.

MR. KIRBY: Okay.

By sending that spreadsheet out to the district, they are authorizing these expenditures or agreeing to this list of busing contracts?

MS BATTCOCK: They are confirming that this is what has been approved for this year, yes.

MR. KIRBY: That is what the district means when in its response it says: This was approved by the Department of Education?

MS BATTCOCK: Yes.

MR. KIRBY: Okay, thank you.

That is all I have.

CHAIR: I have a few questions.

To stay with the document we are looking at right now, the school busing document, does that mean this approval has to be given before you can extend these contracts? How does that work? What is the timing of it?

MR. FELTHAM: Before the district can implement its action for contract tendering it requires discussion and approval from the Department of Education. The Department of Education funds busing at 100 per cent. For example, this year we were not able to proceed until we got approval from the Department of Education, which came some time in August, I believe.

CHAIR: This says for the school year 2010-2011. That is what it says right in the document, "Please find attached our worksheet showing approved bus routes for school year 2010/11." This is the document you just provided to me.

Does the school year run from September to June? When is the school year?

MS BATTCOCK: September to June.

CHAIR: It is not the calendar year?

MS BATTCOCK: No.

CHAIR: This document is dated November 9, 2011. That would seem to be six months after the school year finished.

MS BATTCOCK: That was the date this was forwarded to me. This would originally have gone to the manager of pupil transportation, who would have been in consultation with the Department of Education.

CHAIR: Okay.

Do you have an earlier confirmation that comes within the school year?

MS BATTCOCK: I am sure I could get that.

CHAIR: Are you able to check your records and find the earliest written confirmation you have that these were the approved bus routes for the school year 2010-2011?

MS BATTCOCK: Yes, I will look for that.

CHAIR: Looking at the attached list, and I have selected one which is the tenth line down. That says Anchor Point to Flower's Cove, distance fifteen, George Caines renewal.

MS BATTCOCK: Okay.

CHAIR: This says the start date was September 1, 2005. Was this a five-year contract that was being renewed? How can it be that more than six years after the contract start date we have this renewal?

MS BATTCOCK: I would have to look at that particular tender, but it could be a five-year contract with an option to renew for five years.

CHAIR: In the fifth and sixth lines it says tender existing, and a couple further down are extensions and the others are renewals. Does that mean they were not tendered, they were simply renewed?

MS BATTCOCK: For which route number, sorry? Thirteen?

CHAIR: Actually, the number five and number six in the list, it says tender existing. Then a little further down, a couple of them say tender existing, then some are extensions, but generally they are renewals. Does that mean they are renewed untendered?

MS BATTCOCK: There would be a clause in the contract of the original tender to allow for that renewal.

CHAIR: That would mean that the one, for example, for L'Anse aux Meadows to Griquet-St. Lunaire, Clarence Hedderson, September 5, is a renewal of that contract six years after it began?

MS BATTCOCK: That would mean it would be a five-year, and it would have been renewed the beginning of the sixth year for another five years.

CHAIR: Are most school bus contracts five-year contracts?

MS BATTCOCK: Most of them are – for the regular ones, yes.

CHAIR: I understand that the school board maintains a certain fleet of buses, and that others are contracted.

MS BATTCOCK: Yes.

CHAIR: Why is it that the school board maintains some and others are contracted? Wouldn't it make sense if there is a need for the board to have its fleet of buses that it would handle all of them? Or, if it were better to have them contracted, why wouldn't they all be contracted? Why the difference?

MS BATTCOCK: Brian, did you want to –

MR. FELTHAM: (Inaudible) existed upon amalgamation. Throughout history you have seen possibly, at times, when the board-owned busing would cost more than a contracted system. Perhaps at some point, it may have had a case where the contracted system exceeded the board-owned busing in some areas. It is a product of the history of boards up to this point in time.

CHAIR: I understand that it costs substantially more per unit for the board to handle busing than if it is contracted. Is that correct?

MR. FELTHAM: The analysis would show that board-owned busing would be more expensive than contracted busing at this point in time.

CHAIR: Is the range somewhere like $50,000 or $60,000 versus $30,000-odd per year, on average?

MR. FELTHAM: I do not have that analysis in front of me, but those numbers may be correct. I am not absolutely sure.

CHAIR: Is it true that one of the rationales for the contracted price being lower is that the school board feels that the bus contract operator is able to make up additional income by operating the bus other than for the board, whereas the board bus would be exclusively for the board to have no other areas of income?

MR. FELTHAM: I am wondering if you could just repeat that question again. I apologize; I did not pick up part of it.

CHAIR: Is part of the rationale for the board cost being higher per unit than the contracted cost, that the board takes the position that the contractor can actually make extra money by running the bus on other things themselves?

MR. FELTHAM: I believe the difference in the two systems might be attributable to maybe more than one factor. I cannot say it with certainty, but I know the wages would be different from contracted wages with CUPE, for example, versus local labour. I do know that the age of buses could be a factor depending on what was being used. There may be other factors to attribute to this.

CHAIR: Is it true that students whose means of bus transportation is a private contractor has to pay more for extracurricular busing than do students whose main bus is the board bus? That is a complaint that I have heard.

MR. FELTHAM: That would be a fair assessment that the board-owned busing comes with a prescribed program for how the buses can be used and what their rates would be. Then, in a free market, with contracted services, within that market there would be an opportunity for contractors to bid on or secure work from schools, and it is based on what the free market would allow.

CHAIR: Does the school district have any concern that it might indicate some level of discrimination between groups of students who have school board buses versus those who have private contractors? The private contractors are charging more, so the students are having less access for extracurriculars or school bus trips.

MR. FELTHAM: The district has heard this issue in the past and the district is challenged to come up with a solution that would resolve the current situation.

CHAIR: One of the issues was a capital asset list. Do I understand that now there is a capital asset list of all assets?

MR. FELTHAM: I would answer that in this way. We have a casual capital asset listing. Those would be for items $15,000 and beyond for furniture and equipment. We have items that are for land and buildings with a threshold of $50,000; those items are done. So your buses, buildings, those are done. We have our computer equipment, our photocopiers, our interactive whiteboards, routers, and printers. Those kinds of items are completed. We are now embarking upon a very large project that will see district staff record the assets in all schools.

We had a pilot project just before summer where we recorded all assets of Corner Brook High. So, we have sixty-four more schools to do the remaining asset listing. Those items would be those things you would find in classroom: desks, furniture – maybe in your library. We have substantive portion of our moveable assets completed, but there is still possibly up to a year's work to get all of the other assets in all our schools inventoried. If you took one person and was one day in each building trying to record the information that is required, you would be a quarter of a year, I suppose.

It is a very labour-intensive, time-consuming task, and we have now developed a process for that and can say with confidence to the Committee that we believe this school year all assets for the Western School District will be recorded.

CHAIR: I accept completely that it is an substantial task to find all of the stuff that you have, particularly given what I would call mergers in the corporate world – except it is not a merger, you were put together.

Is this something that would fall under the purview of the internal auditor, when it is done?

MR. FELTHAM: Absolutely, Mr. Chair. We view this work as critical and important, and we welcome the time when our internal auditor can actually go out and take our inventory listing and do a verification.

CHAIR: For verification, does the Western School District have what I will call a sticker program in place – like the government has – that when everything has been identified, you put the sticker on it and it says it belongs to the school district. Then you would not have the type of issue that you referred to in one of the earlier pieces, of equipment that nobody knew for sure who paid for it and who owned it and so on. If it was paid for and there is a sticker on it, it should be more or less conclusive. Do you have that sort of a program?

MR. FELTHAM: We have the software program to inventory. The phase of putting the appropriate sticker on the equipment and furniture will hopefully come during this school year. So, it is a stage in our development process.

CHAIR: Do you have a current listing of all of the real estate that the board owns? I appreciate some of the board real estate issues because you have had a series of more than fifty years' worth with the amalgamated school board and there are different pieces of land in different parts of the Province that, in my understanding, nobody knows for sure if this diocese owns it or the Department of Education owns it or whatever. Do you have a list of all of the real estate owned by the board, or by the district?

MR. FELTHAM: Yes, we do.

CHAIR: A complete listing right now?

MR. FELTHAM: We have a listing of all of our properties.

CHAIR: Do you have current appraisals on the approximate fair market value of any of that land?

MR. FELTHAM: I am going to ask Brian King. We would have on record values for all of our property, including our tangible capital assets.

I am turning to my left –

MR. KING: Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

Your question was do we have current market values for all of our properties, appraised values?

CHAIR: Being involved in the business yourself, you probably realize that real estate values sometimes go down, but generally go up. Sometimes what looks like an old piece of land might be quite valuable. I am wondering if you have a practice of, or if you have current appraisals to know how much – is that an old piece of land with a book value of $50,000, or is it something that is worth a couple of million dollars because a mall went up there ten years ago, or something like that.

MR. FELTHAM: (Inaudible) the value, but before the district disposes of any property we have it appraised at current market value and then we follow a public process to dispose of the property. That is a long-standing practice.

CHAIR: Okay.

There were questions earlier about travel advances and I am not sure that I am clear on them. Guidelines that apply to members are fairly well-defined and strict.

I am wondering: How much would a travel advance be? Does that still exist, if somebody gets an advance for a trip or something?

MR. KING: Yes, we do provide. Not everyone avails of that option at all, but there are some. I would say it is not a prevailing thing with our staff but there are some members who request an advance for a trip. Let's say for an in-servicing of some type at the department and the associated cost for that for a couple of days. What would it cost? Rarely, is it in the magnitude of $1,000, probably something less than that – if that is your question.

MR. FELTHAM: We are looking at a process whereby the district will pay the claim to the teacher. We will batch a series of claims, and then we would send it to the department and have a bulk payment for a group of claims. So, we are considering perhaps an alternative process to our existing program. That might provide for a little more efficiency. Obviously, we would have to work with the department on any kind of adjustment to our program.

CHAIR: I can appreciate where somebody may need to travel on board business and may not be flush with ready cash. It might be necessary, although it would be a bit strange to advance much money very often, at least in my experience. This would be maybe for airfares or hotels, that sort of thing. Is that correct?

MR. KING: Correct.

CHAIR: If the district had considered having the district handle that directly, and maybe have a reimbursement for per diems and mileage, more or less take it out of the hands of the employee who is travelling on district business. Is that something where there has been any consideration?

MR. KING: We will pursue that with the department. We have been thinking about that more recently. In many cases we do submit claims for travel, hotels, and things like that, on behalf of staff, but we have not made it a practice 100 per cent as yet.

If the department is interested, as we are, to find as many efficiencies as we can to keep these financing issues tidy and clear, and minimize, if you want to call it that, we will engage in a conversation to see if changes can bring about those efficiencies, for sure.

CHAIR: There is a term that I have run across and I am not sure I am competent to define it, and that is upscale hiring. Can you tell me what that is and how it works? Presumably, everybody who got hired thought they were upscale.

DR. ELLIOTT: I will give what is perhaps a layman's understanding of it, and then if people want to fill in the details, then that is fine.

Upscale hiring is a process that allows an organization to pay more than the established or set salary when there is no other candidate – suitable, qualified candidate in the file – and when the individual will not accept the position for the salary that is offered.

Is that a fair definition?

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: That would mean that the market more or less dictates?

DR. ELLIOTT: Well, in most cases, of course, the market does not dictate. In most cases there are competitions, but what it does mean for the education system, rather than to leave a very important position unfilled and to have either the safety of children or the education of children jeopardized, there is that very rare process that can occur. Normally, this would occur either for specialized positions or for positions in areas of the district that it would be difficult to recruit.

CHAIR: Would that position then be filled permanently at that rate, or would it reopen a year or two, or three, or would time allow the person the rate paid to have caught up? What would happen?

DR. ELLIOTT: I am not speaking now about the teaching field or anything like that, but it does allow you to make a permanent contract with that individual.

CHAIR: How is that governed? Is that done at your level, or do you have to go to the ministerial level, or do you have to go for board approval? What do you need to do to do that?

MR. KEEPING: The process we would go through there would be, for example, you might have a selection process that identifies a couple of candidates. You make that offer to the first candidate, they turn it down, then you go to the second one and they may turn it down as well. You get in a position where you may start at Step 21 for example, and if you go beyond making an offer of the highest step then you would have to get approval from the minister to go beyond that.

There is a process where we would be in contact with Treasury Board as to how the offers would be made. At a point where we would potentially need to go beyond the director, then you would have to go to Treasury Board and the minister to go beyond that. By and large, you would be starting at the lower step and then maxing out at the highest step. You could only go beyond that with approval from the minister and Treasury Board.

CHAIR: I understand you are permitted to hire, I would say, on short notice for up to three months for a position covered by the collective agreement or six months for managerial? I think I heard both answers earlier.

MR. KEEPING: No, I think it is thirteen weeks for a bargaining unit and I believe it is six months for management, but I will have to go and double check. There is a difference for bargaining units versus management positions.

CHAIR: The ones who were hired without competition: Were they bargaining unit positions or were they generally managerial?

MR. KEEPING: I believe they were both. There were times when it had to occur.

CHAIR: Is the union consulted when this happens? Is there any possible discord with the union because it was seen to be less – if it is a bargaining unit position then they may have some input or some concern?

MR. FELTHAM: I could probably add an example.

We had a bus driver some years ago – and this was one of the issues which we are referring to – who was not able to drive a bus. In order to get him back to work, we worked with the employee first, consulted the union, and created a position called a bus transportation foreman. The rate that person was paid was a busing rate plus $1 for the foremanship, which was a standard theme in the CUPE contract.

In that particular case, we worked with a number of different people to have this person come back to work. The position was not rated and it is one that was identified by the Auditor General, all done with good intentions and all done with consultation. If you were to advertise the position, he might not have gotten it. In this case, the individual was given the position based on a strategy developed by a group of stakeholders.

DR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chair, if I might, perhaps I can answer for teachers.

When this is done for teachers, it is normally the August issue that I talked about. We do not call up the NLTA on every one of them because we understand the collective agreement. If they get a question from someone – which, by the way, they did not on any of these items that have been here, but if they do, they call up and we explain what we are doing. There is a general understanding among the parties of the application of the agreement.

CHAIR: Thank you.

I have no more questions, but maybe some of the other members would have questions. Any further questions?

I think we can probably safely conclude. Thank you for coming.

DR. ELLIOTT: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: By all means, if you wish.

DR. ELLIOTT: (Inaudible) it is extremely brief.

I would just like to say, having omitted to say it earlier – and I forget where the question came from, but it was around district office staff and its relationship to students and schools. I just wanted to say there that when we look at district office staff, we have to visualize these people who have a base at the district office, but in many cases their job would be to assess students who cannot read and to work with the deaf and hard of hearing. I just want to give the picture that many, many of these are individuals who are working with students. In some cases, they have student caseloads. They have a different location from which they work.

The second thing, other than my thank you that I wanted to say, is that there has been a little bit of a discussion here today out of necessity about the formation of the Western School District and other districts and the size of the district and so on. I would certainly not like to leave the impression that this has not been a good thing or a good ride. I was and I am a supporter of the consolidation of the district that I am currently director of for a lot of reasons. There has been tremendous learning that has occurred through the consolidation of the systems. I believe there is an overall increase in service to students and to staff. I think that even though there have been challenges such as we have talked about today, that the learning and the progress is still substantially greater than had we stayed in our separate jurisdictions.

It is not often – as a matter of fact, it is the first time that I have been invited to this particular room. On behalf of my staff, I would truly like to thank you for your courtesy and your hospitality, and the insight that you have brought and the genuine interest that I sense you have in improving the spending of public funds. I want to say as well that every question or comment that we have received today from all of you has been respectful and insightful and well meant, and certainly helpful to us in our continued learning.

On behalf of the Western School District, I thank the Public Accounts Committee for today's proceedings. We wish as well to acknowledge the valuable work of the Auditor General and the significant contribution that your review has made to the district in assisting us with identifying ways to improve our operations and to improve our accountability and overall functioning.

I trust that our dialogue today has indicated to you that the Western School District is committed to improving our systems, and we are confident that our professional and financial integrity is upheld. We look forward to continuing improvements in our district operations in support of our core mandate for student learning.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

CHAIR: Do I hear a motion to adjourn?

MR. K. PARSONS: So moved.

CHAIR: A seconder?

MR. CROSS: Seconded.

CHAIR: Thank you.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.