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Ontario’s auditor general will investigate the controversial payments the government made to cover negotiation costs for provincial teachers’ unions.
The money — at least $2.5 million — was used to cover the cost of hotels, meals and other expenses incurred by the unions during a new two-tiered negotiating process, with central issues like salaries and prep time dealt with at a provincial level.
The investigation was triggered by a motion by local-area Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod at the Standing Committee of Public Accounts. The committee has a Liberal majority, but the motion passed unanimously Wednesday morning.
MacLeod said the actual amount of the payouts could “skyrocket” when the education unions’ tabs are finally tallied.
“It seems every day we ask a question, when we leave Question Period it’s a new number,” she said.
The province has defended the payouts, which include $1 million to the secondary teachers’ federation, as a necessary part of the new bargaining system. Education Minister Liz Sandals said the parties spent six months just hammering out the details of what were central issues and which ones were local. That lead to “extraordinary costs” for the union, she said.
“I don’t think of it as compensation per se,” Sandals said last month. “I think of it as investing in transforming a system that didn’t work.
“It will never happen again because we’re never going to have to figure out every clause in every collective agreement again,” Sandals told the Canadian Press.
MacLeod, the MPP for Nepean-Carleton, said the payouts came even as school boards were cancelling programs for struggling students and were made to unions that had backed the Liberals in the last provincial election.
“This is money that’s clearly for children’s education that has been diverted,” she said. “We need to see the receipts.”
The auditor general is expected to return a special report in the spring of 2016.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
The money — at least $2.5 million — was used to cover the cost of hotels, meals and other expenses incurred by the unions during a new two-tiered negotiating process, with central issues like salaries and prep time dealt with at a provincial level.
The investigation was triggered by a motion by local-area Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod at the Standing Committee of Public Accounts. The committee has a Liberal majority, but the motion passed unanimously Wednesday morning.
MacLeod said the actual amount of the payouts could “skyrocket” when the education unions’ tabs are finally tallied.
“It seems every day we ask a question, when we leave Question Period it’s a new number,” she said.
The province has defended the payouts, which include $1 million to the secondary teachers’ federation, as a necessary part of the new bargaining system. Education Minister Liz Sandals said the parties spent six months just hammering out the details of what were central issues and which ones were local. That lead to “extraordinary costs” for the union, she said.
“I don’t think of it as compensation per se,” Sandals said last month. “I think of it as investing in transforming a system that didn’t work.
“It will never happen again because we’re never going to have to figure out every clause in every collective agreement again,” Sandals told the Canadian Press.
MacLeod, the MPP for Nepean-Carleton, said the payouts came even as school boards were cancelling programs for struggling students and were made to unions that had backed the Liberals in the last provincial election.
“This is money that’s clearly for children’s education that has been diverted,” she said. “We need to see the receipts.”
The auditor general is expected to return a special report in the spring of 2016.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
