(Wednesday, October 31/2001) - District 6 Councillor Brian Warshick welcomes the announcement by Education Minister James Purves to evaluate the performance of the re-organized regional school board system in Nova Scotia, but questions why it took her so long to take any action in light of recent school board spending controversies.
"It's almost too little, too late. Someone was sleeping at the switch and the Minister should be asking why?, "he said.
Councillor Warshick said questionable spending practices involving two regional school boards in Nova Scotia were made public during the past two weeks, yet the Minister did not act until yesterday when she announced the appointment of a special government evaluation team to examine the administrative effectiveness and financial accountability of the Province's school boards.
The evaluation comes amid revelations that senior bureaucrats at the Strait Regional and Chignecto-Central school boards spent almost $2.3 million without the knowledge and approval of their elected boards.
The Councillor said he publicly called for the Minister to take immediate action during an Open Round Table at the annual meeting of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities in Sydney two weeks ago. At that time, he urged the Minister to introduce new changes to the School Board Act during this fall's Legislature, making school boards more accountable for their spending. Ms. Purves responded that no changes were contemplated. Again last week, Councillor Warshick urged the Minister in a news release last week (October 25th) to examine school board spending. He received no response.
He said "I find it rather ironic that just a couple of days after the Sydney meeting, Nova Scotians find out the Minister is launching an investigation into a controversial loan of $500,000 by the Strait Regional Board to a school official. At the same time, she announced the Chignecto-Central School Board is also under scrutiny because of the alleged unauthorized spending of $1.7 million."
Councillor Warshick also reminded the Minister that the Halifax Regional School Board (HRSB) failed earlier this year to produce some discs with financial information on them, and that over a year ago Ms. Purves had to step in because of problems at the Southwest School Board.
"That's four out of seven School Boards in just over a year. The taxpayers of Nova Scotia demand and deserve a better accounting of the core funding, municipal mandatory funding and the supplementary funding," Councillor Warshick said.
The Councillor said quick and responsive steps are required for the benefit of all school boards in Nova Scotia, but more importantly, taxpayers need to be confident that their money is being spent wisely and where needed most.
He said it is important that the Province include a mechanism in any new measures it may introduce to ensure municipal Councils may appeal directly to the Boards, or ultimately the Province, if they are dissatisfied with the performance of a regional school board.
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Councillor Brian Warshick
(902)488-3800
