Peggy Revell
By a 4-2 vote last night, the Rainy River District School Board found newly-elected trustee David Kircher had breached confidentiality, but current trustees remain outraged over the outgoing school board’s actions to amend senior administration contracts at its final meeting.
“Bottom line, if I’m sanctioned, I certainly think it’s worth the censure to go through that and have this information public as opposed to not,” Kircher said after the vote, which came after he shared with members of the public that the outgoing board had voted behind closed doors in November to amend the contracts of both the director of education (Heather Campbell) and superintendent of business (Laura Mills) so each would receive four years’ salary plus benefits in severance pay if let go by the new board.
The new board originally discussed the contract issue in-camera at its meeting in January, and that the two contracts had been changed was noted in the public minutes.
The issue arose again in public discussion at February’s meeting when trustee Dan Belluz, chair of the former board, stated more details concerning the contract amendments originally discussed in-camera had been shared with the public—an action Kircher took responsibility for.
The 4-2 vote at last night’s meeting—held at Donald Young School in Emo—was in favour of a resolution that Kircher had breached the Trustee Code of Conduct.
“I was a little surprised, but not overwhelmed or anything,” Kircher said. “I can appreciate the other trustees thinking that I had breached the Trustee Code of Conduct and they’re entitled, obviously, to their opinion.
“I didn’t breach, as far as I’m concerned, the in-camera portion of anything—I just publicly stated what the amendments were about,” Kircher said, standing by the explanation he gave at February’s board meeting as to why sharing this information wasn’t a breach, including that the amendments were put into open session and that both the Freedom of Information Act and Education Act “dictate that the substance of the amendments is public information and should have been disclosed.”
Kircher now has 14 days to respond to trustees. Then at April’s board meeting, trustees will vote to confirm or reject the motion passed last night, explained board chair Michael Lewis.
If confirmed, there then will be a recommendation for a consequence, Lewis noted, the least of which would be a censure—specifically, a letter of reprimand.
“I don’t know what the board will do,” conceded Lewis, who was joined by trustee Ralph Hill in voting against last night’s resolution.
“By April 5, I certainly will make a recommendation as to what I think the consequence will be and then the board can vote on that, yea or nay,” he explained.
“I really struggled with [the decision] because I also believe it was information that should have been in the public in the first place,” said board vice-chair Dianne McCormick, who ultimately voted that there was a breach of confidentiality.
“Basically, whether or not the issues should have been dealt with in-camera or not, it was still being discussed in-camera,” she reasoned.
“The proper course would have been for it to be publicly released in one form or another before trustees spoke about it—whether or not they believe it should have been,” she added.
Belluz, who voted that there was a breach, refused to comment to the media following last night’s meeting.
Also voting in favour of the resolution was Marg Heyens and Chief Earl Klyne, who represents the area’s First Nations on the board.
Kircher did not vote.
“I’m very concerned about the process that took place on Nov. 2, 2010,” stressed Lewis. “I believe it was not right.
“It was legal, but I don’t think it was ethical,” he added, pointing to how it was known in November that only two trustees from the old board would be returning.
Lewis also said “lame duck” legislation—already in place for municipal councils—needs to apply to school boards by 2014.
“What [the former board] did was effectively, theoretically, harness this board with a possible payout which was considerable,” he argued.
“I don’t believe that will ever come to pass,” he added. “It doesn’t matter, though, as in theory it could.
“I didn’t accept their reasoning that somehow or other this nefarious group of trustees who had just been elected were going to come down and do something silly like fire administrators,” Lewis remarked.
While Kircher had been vocal about issues such as the missing funds from Fort Frances High School, he never mentioned anything about getting rid of employees, Lewis noted, nor have the other new trustees.
Lewis said he wrote to local MPP Howard Hampton as a citizen this past fall concerning “lame duck” legislation after actually hearing rumours “on the street” that such contract amendments were in the works.
“Which to me is kind of odd because that would mean that someone on that [former] board breached the code of conduct, or how would I know [through rumours] that they were going to do that?” he reasoned.
Since the new board learned of the contract amendments in January, Lewis said he’s since written to all three provincial party leaders over the issue but has received no response so far.
He said he also contacted the Ministry of Education, who told him that it was a Ministry of Municipal Affairs problem, and was, in turn, told by Municipal Affairs that it was a Ministry of Education problem.
Lewis also wrote to the Ministry of Government Services, but has not yet received a response.
Meanwhile, the need for “lame duck” legislation for school boards was something Hill brought up this past weekend when he was in Toronto for an Ontario Public School Boards Association meeting.
As the local board’s rep to the OPSBA, Hill raised the issue with other members, including the OPSBA’s executive director and first vice-president, who will be looking into the issue, getting a legal opinion, and seeing how to proceed.
“One of them felt it makes all public school boards look bad to the public, and it also makes them look bad to the Ministry of Education,” Hill said of the reaction to the former board’s actions here.
“I certainly talked with people from Stratton to Emo to Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto and everyone is disgusted with the actions of the old board,” he added.
“That’s 100 percent unanimous.
“People felt that after an election to make that kind of [decision]—everyone is absolutely disgusted,” he remarked.
As for a breach of confidentiality, Hill agreed with Kircher that the release of this information falls under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Public money, as much as possible, should be public,” he stressed.
“To me, the crime in no way, shape, or form is the breach of trust, but is the actual act of putting us on the hook for $1.3 million after being voted out.”
