I have been reading about the financial excesses and counter-productive and selfish behaviour of the two local school boards that are supposed to serve the ratepayers and monitor the education, costs, and needs of the children in Brant, Haldimand, and Norfolk counties.
Taxpayers pay for their children to attend public or separate elementary and secondary schools considerable sums to the school board.
Parents expect not only fiscal responsibility from their trustees, but also are entitled to expect a higher standard of behaviour.
The taxpayers who fund the GEDSB have been subjected to juvenile behaviours, using their authority against a fellow trustee brought on by personality clashes and a need to flex their muscles and feed their egos.
As well, four BHNCDSB trustees spent $145,000 enjoying first-class travel, accommodation in Italy, and even a $1,600 dinner under the guise of buying art to decorate a new separate school.
Why didn’t the trustees of BHNCDSB simply view those pieces either in an online catalogue or in a virtual meeting?
The answer is simple.
School board trustees have no respect for the taxpayers’ money, they feel that it is their money and if BHNCDSB runs short, just raise the education portion of your property taxes.
Also, it helped to “conveniently” change the protocols of BHNCDSB that oversees expenditures such as this a month before this egregious waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
And GEDSB is no better.
They’re wasting taxpayers’ dollars and Board resources to settle dislikes, grievances, and personal scores by making complaints about another trustee, preventing her from doing her elected job.
A scathing decision from the Divisional Court of Ontario ripping into the actions of GEDSB, naming and scolding several trustees for advancing what can be considered trifling grumblings and wasting Board dollars and resources, pointed this out.
The trustees of both these Boards are elected to serve the needs of taxpayers, be fiscally responsible with taxpayers’ dollars, and look after their childrens’ educational needs.
It is not the province of trustees to use their positions to recklessly spend taxpayers’ dollars on lavish trips under the guise of buying art by changing the oversight policies meant to identify and curb fiscal abuses such as this.
Nor is it in the best interests of taxpayers and children to use their authority to conduct a vendetta against another trustee.
What is needed are term limits for school board trustees. Both boards have too many trustees that have long exceeded their “best before date.”
Those trustees lost sight of the fact that they are there for the taxpayers and the children and that they are stewards of the public purse. They are not there to feast on the taxpayers’ dime and or to feed their massive egos.
In closing, I would strongly suggest that voters, in the next school board elections, keep the puerile conduct of GEDSB and the disrespect for taxpayers of BHNCDSB in mind and elect an entirely new slate.
As an addendum, I have read that GEDSB is going to appeal that Divisional Court decision. Oh good, let’s waste more tax dollars on petty quarrels.
Allison Gowling, Woodstock
Previously of Haldimand
