By Rebecca Pace
The Ottawa-Carleton District S chool Board trustees are giving themselves a 214 per cent raise.
The board voted Sept. 26 to increase its annual honoraria from $5,000 to almost $15,700 starting Dec. 1, says Michèle Giroux, the board’s executive officer.
Trustees also gave themselves retroactive honoraria of approximately $13,500 for work completed from Sept. 1, 2005, to Nov. 31, 2006.
Giroux says the board was mandated by the provincial government to vote on its past and future remuneration.
She says the provincial legislation also required the board to consult with a Citizen’s Advisory Committee, comprised of three parent members and three community representatives, to determine the amount of the retroactive and future honoraria.
Gerald Ohlsen, committee chair and co-chair of the Glebe Collegiate Institute’s school council, says the $5,000 trustees were receiving was “absurdly low” considering a trustee’s work hours are comparable to a part-time job. He also says that the honoraria trustees will receive starting Dec. 1 will be lower than what they earned in the 1990s – before cuts were made by the Harris government.
Ohlsen says the committee recommended the maximum increase allowed under provincial government regulations because it wanted to send the message that “we appreciate the work of our trustees and support the idea of local decision-making in public education.”
He says the increase will also encourage people to become trustees; however, local candidates say money is not the reason they’re running.
Somerset trustee candidate Jennifer McKenzie says while she supports the decision to increase the honoraria, “I’m running because I want to make a difference.”
Joan Spice, the current trustee who is seeking re-election, says she not only thinks the raise is well-deserved but should have come a lot sooner.
“Prior to the 2003 election, both the Conservative government and the campaigning Liberals discussed reviewing our honoraria,” says Spice. “So many of us entered the trustee election thinking we were going to receive it for the full three years.”
However, the security of the raise is still in doubt.
Although the trustees have voted for retroactive and increased future honoraria, Spice says it’s still not clear whether the board or the province will pay for it.
According to a report from the board, the total cost of both the retroactive and increased honoraria will be approximately $361,000.
With an operating budget of $611 million, Spice says the board could cover the cost but she also says she remembers former education minister Gerard Kennedy promised to pay the retroactive portion of the honoraria. Spice says she hasn’t heard anything from the province.
Valérie Poulin, senior communications adviser to Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, says $3.5 million is set aside to cover the increase in future trustee honoraria across Ontario starting in December.
However, while she says she acknowledges “a minister” did promise the province would pay the retroactive honoraria, she says “this minister has yet to make a final decision.”
In the meantime, Giroux says the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board will write Wynne in hopes of getting the province to cover the full cost of both the retroactive and future trustee honoraria.
“The previous minister did indicate the expense would be covered,” says Giroux.
“We’ll make every effort to see that the province will cover the cost.” However, in the event that this doesn’t happen, she says the new expense will not affect classroom spending as it will come out of the board’s central administration budget.
Ohlsen says he’s written a similar request on behalf of the committee.