Teacher trust cost slammed
NDP, Tories say Liberals dishonest about $300M cost of setting up merged benefits
Education Minister Liz Sandals was under fire Wednesday over $300 million to set up benefits trusts for teachers and school staff after promising their new contracts wouldn’t cost taxpayers an extra dime.
“It’s another example of this government not being honest with Ontarians,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said after Sandals insisted the money will cut benefits costs by consolidating about 1,000 such plans at school boards across the province into five.
The $300 million has nothing to do with wages to teachers and other unionized education workers, Sandals said. She maintained her promise that contracts would be “net zero” in terms of additional costs to taxpayers but insisted that did not include such administrative expenses.
“This isn’t about a compensation cost, this is an investment in creating something different which over the long term will save us money, but it does require an up-front investment,” Sandals said. “This really is a long-term project, which is why the start-up costs are so high.”
Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) accused Sandals of having a “credibility” problem.
She slammed “the audacity of the minister today to claim it is still a net zero when we know $300 million went into these secret payouts and benefit plans rather than into kids in the classroom.”
MacLeod said she is awaiting an examination of the expenses by auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.
Sandals acknowledged it will take time to reap the rewards of consolidating the plans for life, health and dental benefits run jointly by school boards and various education unions.
“It will take several years (to consolidate the plans) and then a few more years out before we would start to see savings,” the minister said.
The government has insisted that all education contracts were “net zero” — meaning any improvements were funded by savings found within the collective agreements themselves.
Spending on teacher and staff benefits is about $1 billion, and the government predicts that over the next 15 years — as the workforce ages — the additional cost pressure would be roughly $6 billion.
The new trusts are intended to shift responsibility for the risk of extra costs to “a joint responsibility with the federations/unions, subject to future bargaining,” according to government documents.
That $300 million figure emerged Wednesday when the Liberal administration made public the contracts it hammered out with the teacher unions and school boards’ associations, as well as general details of how the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) spent the $1 million it was given to cover bargaining costs.
The Catholic and French teachers’ unions were also given a total of $1.5 million, and their expenses will be made public once all their local agreements are signed.
The government has said that under its new, two-tier bargaining system — in which salary and other big items were settled at provincial negotiating tables, and more administrative items left to locals to sort out — the unions and school boards in- curred extra costs, which the funds were to help cover.
The OSSTF spent $391,110 on hotels, $271,168 on travel and $141,075 on meals, among other costs. The expenses were confirmed in an independent audit.
Sandals said no alcohol was allowed.
The central contract agreements with the teacher unions cover three years — from the 2014-15 school year to 2016-17 — and provide a 1-per-cent lump sum payment as well as a 1.5-per-cent salary increase phased in starting this fall.
The government says the wage in- crease will cost $402 million over the life of the contract, and will be offset by early payouts of banked sick days to teachers, at a discounted rate, saving up to $171 million, as well as a delay in “salary grid” movement — which provides raises on top of overall salary increases based on length of employment and level of education — to mid-year, which saved $95 million.
The government also provided the province’s four school board associations with $11.6 million over four years to help cover their negotiating costs. That money is also not part of the “net zero” promise.