Article contentFirst and foremost, the department did not follow the ranking order provided by the district. Secondly, the justification for new school decisions did not include priority scoring, even though it is required for school renovation projects.Article contentDelays in construction over the past five years, the AG found, not only incurred higher construction costs but cost taxpayers $162 million for portables and modulars to mitigate short- and medium-term enrolment pressures.Article contentOrigins of woesArticle contentPublic concerns and auditor reports on the deficiencies of school building, renovation and replacement are far from new. More than a decade ago, auditor general reports in February 2010 and November 2016 identified a litany of regulatory concerns with school capital planning and management at the school district and provincial levels.Article contentDeclining student enrolment and school closures drove educational planning from 2008 until a decade ago. School boards were required to conduct a long-range outlook for each school, designed, for the most part, to support school closure and boundary reviews in the relentless consolidation process.Article contentArticle contentMuch of the time and energy of school system planners was then absorbed in abandoning the leasing of schools and extricating the province from 20-year agreements, initiated in the 1990s, for more than three dozen public-private partnership (P3) schools. The cost of buying back those schools, estimated at $149 million in March 2017, was eventually added to the provincial debt, which stood at $16 billion in 2020.Article contentPolitical interferenceArticle contentDeviating from the established project priority list, identified in the June report, gives rise to speculation that undue political influence played a role in deciding on proceeding with growth schools. Was it just a coincidence that West Bedford and Halifax North are both represented by opposition members?Article contentThat’s known as queue jumping and it’s happened before, most recently in 2016-17. Back then, a Global News Maritimes investigation uncovered scorecards for schools that were “pushed ahead” of others higher on the waiting list for new builds or renovations. Six out of 17 school projects in 2014-15 were approved to jump the queue, five of which were in government-held ridings, including one in then-education minister Karen Casey’s riding, where cabinet overruled a recommendation that there was “no benefit demonstrated” for the project. It may well have happened again in determining the most recent order of new school construction projects.Article contentArticle contentTackle needed reformsArticle contentProvincial governments have a habit of accepting all auditor general report recommendations, then cherry-picking reforms and brushing off those requiring deeper structural changes.Article contentThe real acid test is whether the department implements a few of the specific recommendations. Given the enormous financial investments in new schools, enrolment forecasts should include the student yields from new housing subdivisions, and alternatives to new builds need to be considered, such as utilizing excess capacity in neighbouring schools or school boundary changes.Article contentThere’s much to be learned from other educational jurisdictions, such as the Calgary Board of Education, with a track record of success in responding to high growth in student numbers. Those changes would include properly scoring and ranking new school project proposals, identifying a range of alternative options and providing public disclosure of the rankings.Article contentSeize the opportunity to put an end to lapses in planning for high-growth school communities. Capital funding shortfalls, delays, screw-ups and Band-Aid solutions are costing millions and further eroding confidence in public education authorities. Implementing the AG’s recommendations would go some distance to ensuring it does not happen again.Article contentPaul W. Bennett is director, Schoolhouse Institute; senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute; and author of Reinventing the Building of Schools: The Real Legacy of Public-Private Partnership (P3) Schools in Nova Scotia.Article content
PAUL W. BENNETT: Nova Scotia’s lapses in school capital planning have consequences
