TRUSTEES FALL SHORT

‘You would like to believe the considerable time of any board or council would be focused around the nature of the business, as opposed to the bookshelf that surrounds the books.”

That’s what one governance consultant with Edmonton Catholic Schools had to say about conflicts, secrecy and questionable conduct that have plagued the board over the last two terms. He captures in a sentence what has gone so terribly wrong with Catholic school trustees.

Their dysfunction has been thrust into the spotlight thanks to an investigation by Edmonton Journal education reporter Janet French. Her excellent watchdog journalism has uncovered a litany of examples where the board focused considerable time not on its core business, but on “the bookshelf that surrounds the books” — as governance expert George Cuff calls the board’s preoccupation with tangential politicking and acrimonious squabbling.

Charged to oversee a budget loaded with $480 million in public money and the education of 40,000 Edmonton children, the seven trustees can’t even get along with each other in meetings without firing childish insults and insinuations at each other and at administration.

On the secrecy issue, do trustees really need to be reminded that they are dealing with taxpayers’ money and that their decisions affect the public? All board decisions, with exceptions such as personnel matters and contract negotiations, must be made in the open.

The Journal investigation found trustees held an improperly convened closed-door meeting and solicited three lawyers’ advice on who had the power to set the date of a meeting where the board chair and vice-chair were chosen.

That brings us to the board’s questionable and costly shopping of legal opinions. Often against the advice of administrators, the trustees spent more than $125,000 on external lawyers’ fees between 2012 and 2016. The larger Edmonton Public Schools board had no external legal costs in that same time.

Voters, and the provincial government, should be alarmed, if not disgusted.

In the past, such behaviour has sparked decisive action from the education minister. In 1999, Lyle Oberg fired the trustees on the Calgary Board of Education, following a series of dysfunctional incidents.

For Education Minister David Eggen to disband this board, given the looming municipal and school-board elections in October, would be tricky. But there is another way.

If you care about Catholic education, now is the time to step up and run as a trustee candidate or make sure your voice is heard at the ballot box.