HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)

Mr. Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Patrick Dunn

Mr. Keith Bain

Mr. Graham Steele

Mr. David Wilson (Sackville-Cobequid)

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Ms. Vicki Conrad replaced Mr. Graham Steele]

WITNESSES

South Shore Regional School Board

Ms. Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, Superintendent

Mr. Barry Butler, Director of Operations

Ms. Anita Conrad, Transportation Manager

Mr. Norm Stableford, Fleet Coordinator

In Attendance:

Ms. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Ms. Angela Cook

Office of the Auditor General

Mr. Terry Spicer

Assistant Auditor General

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Ms. Maureen MacDonald

VICE-CHAIRMAN

Mr. Chuck Porter

MADAM CHAIR: Good morning, I'd like to call the committee to order, please. Today we have with us witnesses from the South Shore Regional School Board as a follow-up to the Auditor General's Report issued last Spring. We welcome our guests.

Our procedure is that we will have the members introduce themselves and have you introduce yourselves and then we will open the floor to you for a brief opening comment, about five minutes max. This will then be followed by rounds of questions from the various members. So we will begin with introductions.

[Committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you, good morning. The floor is now yours.

MS. NANCY PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Thank you very much, we are pleased to be here this morning. I thought in my opening remarks, since I know you have lots of questions specific to the Auditor General's Report and in particular to transportation, I would just take a couple of minutes and contextualize a little bit where we are. What I have given you does include a context of who we are on the South Shore Regional School Board. It also includes our responses to the recommendations in the Auditor General's Report, both in February 2008 and also an update for October.

We are a relatively, I'll say, young team. I've been superintendent since January 2007. We did have a period of time without a director of operations, Barry Butler joined us on September 15, 2008, so Barry is brand new to us. I'm pleased to have with us Anita Conrad, who is our transportation manager and Norm Stableford. Norm has been with us since June and so we are here as a team in part because much of the enhancements we've made in transportation are relatively new.

The South Shore Regional School Board has had an interesting history because we were part of the Southwest Regional School Board initially. We were then separated into two district boards, but still under the Southwest Regional School Board for some of our services. Our operations department was under Southwest and is relatively new as part of South Shore Regional. We still share services with the Tri-County Board in terms of financial services. There was an announcement that that would be separated and we're waiting anxiously to hear whether that separation will happen. We've recently separated in terms of human resources and we have our director's position posted at this point in time. I think that's important to the context because we've been in a state of flux in terms of establishing policies and procedures relating to all areas, including operations.

I've given you a little bit of information on our enrolment history, on our declining enrolment, which again creates some challenges for us in terms of running full buses and bus stops with declining enrolment. The other piece you have on Page 3 is around annual planning. The board is highly committed to planning and in our annual plan we have four goals. One of those goals is directly related to operations with a particular focus on student safety which is directly related to our conversation here today. You can see on Page 3 under Goal 4, there are 17 outcomes related to our fourth goal which is safe, healthy, respectful, positive learning and work environments for all students and staff. So the board is certainly committed to student safety, including our buildings and transportation.

The way we work on the South Shore is that our annual educational business plan works in collaboration with our budget and helps drive the budget and so the board makes decisions with its senior staff each year in how its funding will be allocated.

The last general piece I would speak to is that, since 2005, the South Shore Regional School Board has been involved in a region-wide planning process, which I think is very important in this both economic and declining enrolment. A program review took place which involved all stakeholders identifying quality programming for all students at elementary, middle and high school.

The next piece we looked at was how we would use our buildings and so we did an evaluation of all of our buildings, again, with public meetings with our stakeholders. That led to a number of schools being identified for review through the provincial review process. The board has made some decisions to close some schools.

The final piece which we're anxiously awaiting is, we have a request in for two new schools - which would help us consolidate and move forward for the next 15 to 20 years or more - and three renovations. The impacts of those, of course, are throughout the region, including again transportation, as we make sure we are as safe, but also as efficient as possible in our transportation system.

We have had some significant changes in transportation. As I mentioned, we have a brand new director but one of the other things we did was split the leadership and transportation into two components. Previously we had a manager of transportation and she looked after the entire operation side of routes, stops and bus drivers, but also the entire fleet. We created a new position and Norm Stableford joined us in June. Norm specifically looks after our fleet and we've seen a huge impact of that switch already with having somebody who can actually focus on the buses themselves. It's a large job looking after a large number of buses in a salty environment and not all of our roads are that great. We have a very high number of unpaved roads which creates some challenges for us.

I think I might stop there because I expect your questions will take us into the specific recommendations.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Before we begin, I just want to note that if either Mr. Stableford or Ms. Conrad are speaking, they will need to step forward and sit so that the microphones will pick up. We're recording for Hansard, so sitting back there won't do it. Thank you.

The opening round of questions will be 20 minutes per caucus. Just to let the members know, I'm going to synchronize the time with my cellphone time because it's harder to do using that clock. I'll give you a two-minute warning before your time is up.

We will begin with the NDP caucus. I recognize Mr. Wilson.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you for coming in today. It has been some time, I think, since this report was delivered to our committee. Part of our job, as Public Accounts, is to go through the Auditor General's Report and then ask the witnesses to come forward. We've had the summer break, so that kind of put some time off, but it doesn't, I think, take away from the importance of this committee looking at the reports from the Auditor General and in trying to go through them and ensure that his recommendations and the findings in those reports are taken seriously, not only by government, but by all levels of government wherever you fall.

We appreciate you coming in here and I think some of what I'll ask is probably in this report, because what I want to go through are some of the recommendations that the Auditor General made to see where you are with that and are you getting the support you need as a

school board to fulfill, I think, some of the deficiencies that the Auditor General has brought up in his report - I think it was in February or March.

We take those reports quite seriously, especially with some of the language we've seen in some of the reports and the concerns. Definitely with the audit in your school board there were some significant deficiencies, I think, and some concerns around the safety of our children and the policies and procedures that aren't adequate, as the Auditor General has stated in his report.

With that, in the opening statements in the summary of the Auditor General, he stated that it was a requirement of your board to include performance information on your annual business plan to the government. So prior to this audit, I'm sure you have recognized potentially some of the deficiencies you had in your board. Could you maybe comment on that, that you were aware of some of this, or did this audit really bring forward some things that you weren't aware of at the time?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: A very important question, thank you. Actually the board was well aware that it needed enhancements in its transportation department. As a significant component of the hiring process for the superintendent in January 2007, it was very specific to transportation and the recognition that while there were many good things going on, we needed to enhance our transportation department.

We worked collaboratively, certainly with the Auditor General's team, and I had been through an audit before with a different board. Many of the recommendations that came in the report, we provided that information to the Auditor General's team, in fact, I would say before they identified it. So there were very few surprises for us in the report.

[9:15 a.m.]

We had already started to work on many of the areas that were identified in the report and I think the Auditor General's team, in fact, did note that there had been improvements, even during the period of time they were with us.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So you had identified those previous to the audit and we appreciate the openness because far too often, and I think more recently, it's harder for the Auditor General to get the information he needs to do his job. So if you identified them prior to the audit, were some of those deficiencies included in your annual business plan which you report to the Department of Education - to the minister's office, is it not?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, that's right. They had been and I did include the outcomes for our fourth goal. I'll just go back and give you an example and that may be helpful in this.

A couple of examples, one not transportation, but we were already working on ensuring that all school playground equipment complies with CSA safety standards. That was in our own annual plan and it was also in the Auditor General's recommendations. That would be an example where there was an overlap. Another had to do with one of our outcomes that students, staff and families understand bus safety and code of conduct. We had identified the fact that there were some concerns with code of conduct on buses, and access to student transportation is offered consistently across the region. We had, as well, identified that we had some inconsistencies throughout the region. So, yes, many of those were in our annual plan.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Have you had any correspondence from the government or concerns from the government that some of these deficiencies hadn't been addressed as of yet from the minister's office or the government itself?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No, the way the annual planning process works is that we identify our goals, we have four; we identify our outcomes and we have many outcomes; we identify our own target and our target year; we also identify the measure that we will use and we report annually on that measure. So we submit each year our annual plan, but we also within that submit a report on progress of the previous year's outcomes.

One of the things that the Auditor General's team pointed out, which we were aware of, is it isn't easy to identify measures that are actually measurable and on which one can report. So one of their recommendations is that we continue to work toward measures. We have some new measures that we can use. We have a greatly enhanced system for monitoring bus maintenance, for instance, so we would be able to report on that in much more concrete terms than we were able to when we didn't have a computerized system for tracking.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): That computerized system, when did that come on line?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: In the Spring, just before the end of the school year.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Of last year?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Of 2008.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Okay. When I read through a report like this and I see some of the concerns in here my first thought is, do you have the resources to ensure that all of the Acts - and I think your board has to fall under a bunch of Acts and follow a bunch of rules like the Motor Carrier Act, Motor Vehicle Act, Fire Safety Act, Environment Act. So my first thought is, do you have the resources, do you have the manpower to ensure that all of the policies and procedures that are in place by the government to ensure the safety of the children, are in place? Are you at full complement to

ensure that you have the people, the resources in the positions, to ensure that policies are followed within the school board?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It's an absolute and constant struggle. Our primary work is educating children and we spend the bulk of our budget on people, on personnel. There's no doubt, for legitimate reasons, that our accountability in terms of safety, whether it's transportation, whether it's fire safety, whether it's waste management, that those accountability issues are increasing for good reasons and they are very resource-heavy. So the short answer is, we are very stretched in order to meet the accountability demands and it's very stressful for our educators, because the consequences for non-compliance with management issues are very clear and quite severe. The consequences for not being able to provide the educational supports for children are less tangible and farther out. So we're constantly trying to balance reductions in the classroom in order to meet increasing accountability.

I can provide an example. In this year we were able to balance our budget because we did have a surplus from the previous year, which we're very grateful that the province allowed us to access. We had some outstanding revenue deferred and we got some fuel relief on diesel and buses, again, thanks to a decision of the province. From that money we were able to access, we increased our expenditures in transportation by $604,000. If we were to try to redo that budget without access to $1.1 million in surplus money and over another $0.5 million in deferred, it would be exceptionally difficult to have invested $600,000 in transportation.

Some of that is a one-time cost. We enhanced our bus garage in terms of - I'll call it renovations, but they weren't renovations to upgrade the look, they were renovations because we didn't have an efficient operational system for our staff to respond to drivers' needs, mechanics' needs, housing of inventory, supervision on the shop floor. There were a number of significant issues and we absolutely had to redo that part of that building and it's greatly enhanced. That's a one-time cost that we don't need, but we did add two full-time staff people, a fleet coordinator and an additional mechanic.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So with that, if you didn't have access to the $1.1 million surplus, this year would have been quite difficult to meet the needs of the students this year, is that what you're saying?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, that's true. For instance out of our, I'll call it, regular budget, we had to increase our allocation for body work on the buses because that was one of the significant issues that we have. From our surplus, we were able to increase that by an extra $27,000, which meant that we were able to upgrade two additional buses.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): You said your staff is stretched. Are there vacancies currently that need to be filled and why are they not being filled? Is it the fact that it's harder to recruit individuals to work in that area, or what is the concern in that area?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: In transportation we have been able to fill all of the positions that we have. When I say staff is stretched, it's because we try to staff as much as we need to in order to meet the needs of our students in terms of safety and education. We try not to overstaff because if we have a choice, we would put that money into direct service to students. We do have a human resource director position that is vacant at this point which has a definite impact on transportation because our departments work collaboratively in terms of performance appraisal, expectations, consequences for performance.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): How long has that position been open?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: The director retired in July and we just received written confirmation from the Department of Education that we are able to hire our own director of human resources. It is posted and our target is to have a recommendation to the board at the October 22^nd board meeting.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So July the individual retired, and you're just getting the okay within the last week or so to hire somebody?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We had verbal approval to post the position, so we didn't have to wait. It's typical of a position that senior that it would take several months to fill, so it isn't unusual.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): You had stated that with the access to the surplus you had last year, that one of the increases in cost was around heating and the cost of heating and fuel for the buses in that area. What do you expect this year with that increase or the potential increase - we're going to see a heavy increase in fuel costs this year - what impact is that going to have on delivering the services and will you be able to meet your budgetary requirements in the next year?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: If we are funded next year at the same level as this year, including the surplus with the deferred revenue and the fuel help, we will be able to balance our budget. My concern would be without the fuel help, without the surplus money and without any deferred revenue, it would be very difficult. We will, we are required by law to balance our budget, but it would have a significant impact on our system.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So what you're saying is the $1.1 million that you have access to, you're going to need that next year also to fulfill your requirements. Have you had any indication from the government or the Department of

Education, if they're looking at that? When do you think you'll find out if that's going to be something that you'll receive from the government?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We typically don't get our budgets, of course, until after the Legislature has passed its budget so the nature of the school year and the fiscal year are somewhat problematic for school boards. So I don't know yet is the short answer. What I will say is that we have an excellent working relationship with the Department of Education, we meet monthly as superintendents with the deputy, and our finance directors from around the province meet regularly. We do have the opportunity to have ongoing communication and conversation, so they're very aware of where we are in terms of our budget.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So talking again - and I do have some questions on specific recommendations, especially around the buses and stuff, but I'll try to quickly go through some of the stuff I wanted to get to. We've heard recently from another school board, part of their challenge is to meet those budgetary requirements, especially around heating and that. One of the reports stated that the school board is not going to turn the heat on until November 1^st and maybe that's a way of them saving some money. Are you in the same predicament? Is that a decision that you made or is it just related to what the weather is? I'm just wondering quickly if you have turned the heat on yet in the schools or when do you plan on doing that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We had 17 windows broken out in a school yesterday and I was glad it wasn't any colder because I didn't have to close the school so in that particular school, no, the heat isn't on yet. We don't have a specific date when we say we will turn the heat on or off, but our heating costs definitely are weather-driven, as are our snow removal costs. Some boards contract snow removal, for instance, and it doesn't matter how much it snows and other boards, such as us, we pay more, the more it snows, the more we have to pay.

This year, allowing us to budget at the February fuel price has allowed us to know what we need on that budget line. Because we must always balance the budget, we have to be very cautious in our budgeting. We could not and would not budget assuming we would have no snow and a warm winter because it simply wouldn't be reasonable. We also don't budget assuming that every year will be like last year with heavy snowfall. So we budget in the middle to make sure that we can balance our budget.

The other thing that we do is, we always have some very needed, but discretionary budget lines that we are ready to respond to if we can. An example would be that schools might need physical education equipment, or they might need furniture and they won't know whether we can respond to that until we're well into the winter period and then we know what we need in order to operate our schools. Did I answer your question?

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): I think you're close to it, yes. You're doing well, it's funny, I don't believe you have been in front of the Public Accounts Committee before.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Our time is quite limited so - there were several indications around bus drivers' licences, bus driver first-aid training and emergency evacuation drills. Recommendation 2.3 was that you should ensure that bus drivers have a valid first-aid/CPR certificate and bus evacuation drills are completed as required. Have you addressed those group of issues and if you have, when did you implement them?

[9:30 a.m.]

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes we have. There were two issues there, one was were they being done and were we recording that they were being done? Were they certified and was there a copy of the certification in the files? So there were two related issues. What we have is, in our new software program, there is an automatic flag that comes up when recertification is required and that allows that to be scheduled regularly. So we now have a check in place to make sure that we're aware of anyone who needs to be recertified.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Another quick thing under bus maintenance, you mentioned that in your opening statement. The Auditor General noted that preventive maintenance inspections we're not being conducted in accordance with the schedule established by your board. Recommendation 2.4 was to complete those preventive maintenance inspections on schedule. Has that issue been addressed?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes and that's a primary focus of Mr. Stableford, who is here with us today, so we have a much, much stronger system for preventive maintenance on our buses.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Why do you think it had been allowed to get to the point where those weren't being reported? I would think, especially with the high number - I think, 90-some per cent of your students are bused, right?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So I think the busing would have been a top concern. Is it the fact that you are a new board, you're trying to get your feet under you? Why would it take an audit to bring out something that I think is as crucial as that, as reporting and maintenance schedules?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: First of all, my comment would be that we were already aware, as I mentioned earlier, that we needed improvements in this area. What we did partly was related to personnel and the amount of time with one person trying to oversee all aspects of transportation. The first thing that we did, which I didn't mention before is, we brought in an expert consultant and we asked him to take a very critical look at our transportation system and make recommendations of where we needed enhancements.

We gradually moved into a responsive mode for buses with a large, aging fleet and we have some concerns about whether or not 13 years is a realistic life span for a bus; it may be a couple of years too long. Gradually, we became responsive in terms of looking after our buses, as opposed to having a regular maintenance schedule where the buses were thoroughly checked. If you did want more specifics, Mr. Stableford could certainly speak to that; it's his area of expertise.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, the time has expired now for the NDP caucus. I recognize Mr. Colwell for the Liberal caucus. You have 20 minutes.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Thank you, I'll be sharing my time with my colleague. Just a few questions. I see your teacher-to-student ratio has stayed pretty constant over the last six years, but the all staff-to-student ratio has gone up, as far as staff goes, you have a lot more staff than you had in the past. Could you explain that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes. What has happened is the medical field has greatly improved the ability for students to be able to attend school. In other words we have many more students with high medical needs in our schools, we have many more students with severe learning needs and severe behaviour needs in school. One of the huge celebrations in Nova Scotia is that we have almost all of our children in school, almost all of them for 13 years. That means that we're serving students with much, much greater needs.

Therefore, the enhancements and additions that we have made have not necessarily been in regular classroom teachers standing in front of students, they have been in terms of an increase in guidance counsellors, increases in Reading Recovery to help students read - there's a long list of professional services that we provide to children that don't get captured when we look specifically at class size. The class size initiative has targeted maximum class sizes for us up to the end of Grade 4, but many of the additional enhancements have definitely been student-centred but not necessarily exactly class size.

MR. COLWELL: How many buses do you have and bus drivers?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have just over 100 buses and 17 spares.

MR. COLWELL: How many bus drivers?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Do you mind if I turn to my colleague?

MR. COLWELL: No, no problem. (Interruption)

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have 92 full time and 25 substitutes.

MR. COLWELL: When the information came back on the buses it was not really positive, let's put it that way, when it came back from the Auditor General's Office. There have been large trucking companies dealing with a little bit different issues than school buses for years and years. The good ones, of course, run very safe operations and some of them don't. When you went to the electronic monitoring system for the maintenance, was that something that was generated from within the school board or was that something you purchased from outside?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It was software that we purchased from outside, called EasyBus.

MR. COLWELL: Was there any reason you hadn't purchased that before the Auditor General identified it as a problem?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Moving to electronic systems in all areas of the operation is a gradual process. When that happens is typically determined by budgets, when we're ready, when we feel that manual monitoring has reached a point where it's more cost effective and increased safety in order to do it electronically, so it was a question of timing.

We did have some aspects that were electronic already, but with the advice of the external consultant we hired, the recommendation was that this particular software could help us increase our efficiency in tracking and monitoring many of the things that we wanted to do. So the timing was right for us to move to that. There's a training component as well, so we have to make sure that in order to have staff trained we have to take staff away from their day-to-day work. The person who is responding to parents around bus stops and bus routes has to have a period of time away from doing that in order to be trained on a new piece of software. So it's a balance of when you invest in a new way of doing work.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I ran a business for 18 years and I'm very familiar with that problem. When you went through the system, what qualifications did you get for the individual who is going to look after the maintenance of these buses, originally?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: In our new hire, is that your question?

MR. COLWELL: Previously and in your new hire.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Previously, I can speak to that, but I wasn't superintendent at that time, so I would be speaking to what I was able to learn after I became superintendent.

One of the things that was looked for when the manager of transportation position was added was, in fact, the ability to invest in electronic systems, so the computer ability was part of that, so that was one part at the manager level. In terms of the direct maintenance of the buses, we have mechanics, we have a balance of licensed mechanics and apprentices that we support through to become licensed mechanics. We have a head mechanic in each of our two shops and then we have a lead hand. The lead hand is the person who was looking after the work of the mechanics.

What we identified is that we really needed one person dedicated to look after the fleet, and that's the new fleet person. In that position, we were very specifically looking for an individual with a strong background in understanding the mechanical work of buses, with experience in transportation, but also who was an excellent leader and could work with a mechanic, with our inventory clerk and with the rest of the staff, in order to build a team and move forward.

MR. COLWELL: It sounds like you hired the right person this time.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I believe we did.

MR. COLWELL: They are the right qualifications anyway. The problem is a lot of school boards hire people who really aren't qualified to do the work and it's not the individual's fault who gets the job, but it's the criteria, they aren't set up properly, and then you head into the problems that you've seen, that you've actually had. Again, because someone knows how to operate a computer, or whatever they do with the computer, doesn't mean they know anything about maintaining a bus fleet. With 117 buses and roughly 120 bus drivers, that's a big job and then you tie in all the parents, the bus stops, the requirement to do certain things at certain times, snowstorms, bad weather. The person who had the job before must have just been about ready for a nervous breakdown when it was all over.

I'm pleased to see the improvements that you've made, I think it's very, very positive. Once in a while we sort of have to step back and take a second look at how we do business.

In the other areas of maintenance of the schools and stuff, what about the staff you have for those positions? Are they the same sort of qualifications, they have to have someone who has building experience to maintain the schools, or is it somebody who is . . .

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Staffing is absolutely key, I agree with you. I have to put in a plug and a thanks to our elected board, we have an amazing elected board and they

are a delight to work with. One of the things that we've been working on together is rebuilding operations so Barry Butler, as I mentioned, is brand new.

One of the things that we did, we have another vacancy, we had a retirement on the building side, the person who looks after our custodians and our grounds. We have filled that position temporarily because the other area of expertise we are lacking is we do not have an engineer on staff, we don't have a professional engineer. I believe that's an area where we could benefit.

Buildings are very expensive, we work very collaboratively with TIR and with the Department of Education, but I have worked where the board did have a professional engineer. What we've done is we've filled that position temporarily so that we can make a decision with our new director whether or not that should be a recommendation to the board, to look at an engineer.

The manager who looks after our facilities is a tradesperson, he's a certified plumber and he looks after all of our tradespeople. In fact, he's certified for some of the new systems that some of our tradespeople aren't. We're very light on tradespeople, we are very light. We have, depending on how you count different sites, 31 to 34 schools and we have one plumber, so that's a struggle, particularly with our new sprinkler systems and fire safety. The board, again, from its surplus funds, posted for a one-year plumber within this fiscal year in order to try to catch up on some of the plumbing work. Fire safety always comes first, so it means that some of the other plumbing issues, perhaps toilets that need to be replaced and such, get put on the deferred maintenance list.

MR. COLWELL: I'll pass the rest of my time to my colleague.

MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Whalen, you have until 9:47 a.m.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you very much. First of all, welcome. I apologize for being late, I was actually at Walk to School Day. I think you might wish that some days you had more schools that were walkable, but I know it's not possible in such a large area that you're covering. It's perhaps geographically, I think, the largest of the school boards, or close to it, a very large area that you've got and a lot of communities that need to be served. I do know from a health perspective it's great to have the kids walking, and from a school perspective.

What I wanted to ask you was, first of all when we saw this report, of course, it set off alarm bells with a lot of parents, whether or not they lived in the South Shore. Even if they lived in other areas, I think their question was, what are the buses like and what's the service like in our area and the safety and that sort of thing? I know from your response in February, and again in your updates today, you've taken this very seriously, it was never something to be taken lightly and I know you've been very responsible about it.

What I'd like to know is when the report came out, what official support or government response you might have gotten. I know a lot of this comes back to budgets and competing priorities. Was there a response from the Department of Education - I guess it's the Department of Education which is directly above you and funding you - that would have said look, we'll help you improve these outcomes or improve the information we have here that the Auditor General had uncovered?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I certainly was, and continue to be, in constant communication with the Department of Education in relation to this, but our primary working partner around transportation is the Motor Carrier Division of the Utility and Review Board, particularly with David White and our local inspector and the inspector's supervisor. In terms of processes and planning to move forward, we've worked very collaboratively with the URB and we had been working with them prior to the Auditor General's Report. It actually was the Utility and Review Board that initially spoke with me about possible enhancements in transportation. When I said earlier that many of the strategies were well underway, that was, in fact, with the URB.

[9:45 a.m.]

In terms of buses and funding, we worked closely with the Department of Education and talked about strategies for us to improve the body work, the integrity of our buses, and strategies to do that. They were very helpful with us, as were other boards. We have one other board in particular where their older buses, we felt, were in better shape than our older buses and we were able to have a few of their buses to see whether we could use parts from them or were we better off investing in a few of their buses, in terms of repairs, than some of our worst buses. That sometimes is not because of maintenance, sometimes it is because of the roads on which buses travel. We have a huge number of dirt roads and they're very difficult and very hard on buses.

MS. WHALEN: I understand when you talked about the enhancements already being underway with the URB, that would be more in terms of systems and perhaps in training of your bus drivers, those sorts of enhancements, is that what you're talking about?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, and in terms of deferred maintenance and tracking deferred maintenance and, as we spoke earlier, a system of making sure that bus driver files were updated, that there were flags for when certification was outdated. Specifically, did we receive an influx of money to help us? No.

MS. WHALEN: It wasn't treated as that urgent a matter, then, that money would come in to upgrade your buses?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: That's correct. The changes that we made were within our own budget.

MS. WHALEN: I appreciate how difficult that must have been. In hiring a fleet manager, for example, that was done by reallocating priorities within the school board?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: That's right and the way we budget on the South Shore is that the directors and I - so the director responsible for education, the one for human resources, the one for finance and the one for operations - develop a budget for consideration by the board collaboratively, so when we need to add a fleet manager, it means that all the other directors are looking at areas within their operation where they can reduce in order to respond primarily to a student-safety need related to transportation.

MS. WHALEN: Can you give me some idea what the response was from parents or PTAs, SACs, any of the groups within the South Shore, in the wake of this report coming out?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: The biggest challenge we had was to help our communities understand the difference between not passing a safety inspection and not being safe to drive. So an example that I used with them was if you take your car to be inspected and you have a hole in the exhaust, it fails. It doesn't mean that you wouldn't drive your child to school in that car, so some of the safety infractions were, in fact, not direct threats to safety. So we were able to provide some examples.

The brake issue was of significant concern - as it should be to all of our families as well as ourselves - but we were able to document and we did know that although we had, in fact, not used the exact part that was required in terms of brakes, our buses continued to be tested regularly and at no point ever failed a brake test. So the brakes were working, although we had the wrong canister on the brake. We have a very good relationship with our local media, they're very concerned about parents understanding the issue and they worked collaboratively with us to help parents to understand that we did have issues with the safety inspections of our buses, but at no point were our buses unsafe for the students.

MS. WHALEN: Were there parents who chose to no longer use the bus? Was there any outcome like that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No, I didn't hear of any.

MS. WHALEN: That means that you managed it well, then, I can see that. But it is important, as you say, to make sure first of all that the safety is not being compromised and that you can communicate that back to the parents. I can imagine a lot of concern around reading this kind of report because we felt it here at the Legislature.

Following up on the supports or help and response that was there, you mentioned one of the other boards. I wanted to know whether the other boards, when you meet with the other superintendents, whether they felt a similar concern. It was really that the Auditor

General happened to be in your board that this was uncovered, but it may be repeated in every other board. Would you say that the sort of pressures on the transportation of students is the same in every board and that this might be repeated elsewhere?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I can't speak on behalf of the other boards. I would say that whenever there is an audit of any aspect of school board operation, it causes all superintendents to step back and take a look at their own operation. There was no immediate response and, again, that's because we were already working with the other boards to say we want to make enhancements in transportation, what can we learn from our colleagues? So our transportation staff meets regularly with the transportation staff from the other regions, so they would already be working back and forth collaboratively.

MS. WHALEN: Would you say that the same results would have been found roughly if the Auditor General had gone to other boards, that all the school boards are in roughly the same condition, referring specifically to transportation and buses?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: The scope of the question is beyond what I could say. I can say that I know specifically of certain bus garages in the province where there are very few issues, because I have worked in other boards and I understand how their transportation department works. I wouldn't be able to comment at all on whether or not there are similar concerns anywhere else, I just don't have the . . .

MS. WHALEN: I understand. Unless that had been discussed it is speculative for you, so I do understand that. I was pleased to hear you say you had worked to even look for some solutions which involved co-operation with other boards. You referred to some of the older buses that are perhaps being used for parts or as spares in other boards being better than yours and that is encouraging to see that in itself.

MADAM CHAIR: Order. The time has expired now for the Liberal caucus. I recognize Mr. Bain for the PC caucus, you have 20 minutes.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning and thank you for being here this morning. I want to go back to when the Southwest Regional School Board split and became two boards. That was back in 2004, I believe. I realize you just came on in 2007, but you mentioned earlier that initially when you started reporting, that operations up until recently was joint with the Southwest Board, am I correct in understanding that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: When the Southwest Regional Board existed, operations for the entire Southwest Region were under that board. When we split and became the South Shore Regional - it's a bit confusing because there was South Shore District which was responsible for education only and everything else was Southwest Regional. In 2004, when we became South Shore Regional, we did become responsible for operations. The only

things that continued to be shared with Tri-County were financial services and human resources.

MR. BAIN: I know, in my previous life having spent over 17 years on the school board - you mentioned before about boards co-operating with each other and superintendents getting together, sharing ideas and I'm sure that's like in everything else, transportation, maintenance, the ideas are being shared. I think that's a great idea that those things happen, there's not only the sharing of ideas, there's the sharing of resources as well. You indicated that before when you mentioned about the school buses. Can you tell us some more about your bus system? You already told us how many buses you have and how many spares you have. How many students do you transport each day and how many kilometres of run do you have?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have 7,200 students who are transported each day and I mentioned earlier the number of buses. We actually have 92 full-time buses and 17 substitutes, so I said it was close to 100, but it's 92. Do you mind if I turn to my colleague?

MR. BAIN: Go ahead.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Anita, were you able to identify the number of kilometres? Sorry, we just need to look up the total kilometres.

MR. BAIN: That's fine, but it's a lot of kilometres, it's a big area.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It's a lot of kilometres. It's the entire Queens County and Lunenburg County. We do an annual metrage report and I don't have that with me, I'm sorry.

MR. BAIN: Is it the board's policy to, every once in a while, have a transportation review internally?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It hasn't been the practice of this board or its predecessors to have a specific review. What we do is, we have a board structure where we have committees that are related to each of our departments, so we have a finance and operations committee. Every month, the director of finance and operations reports to that committee and that's a vitally important component of governance and that's the opportunity for the elected boards to question, to challenge and ask for reports. They set the standards of what they would like to have in terms of reporting, so it really is ongoing.

MR. BAIN: You'd be reviewing your routes on a constant basis?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, that's right.

MR. BAIN: We all remember the tragic accident earlier this year in Bathurst. What is your board's policy on transportation of students by school officials or parents?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have a specific policy in terms of student transportation. How we differ in Nova Scotia from New Brunswick is that our Utility and Review Board does not allow for the transport of students in vans such as that used in New Brunswick. Our board policy, in keeping with provincial policy around transportation, where the vehicles are specified in what cannot be used as a vehicle to transport, the insurance requirements are specified and the checks that drivers have to go through before they're allowed to transport students are very specific.

MR. BAIN: Does your board have any private conveyance?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, we do.

MR. BAIN: What are your regulations around private conveyances?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We would contract with private conveyors. They would have to meet the same standards that we would have for any conveyance, but they would typically have their own standards as well because that is their business. We're very proud of the fact that we have very few students with special needs who are not on the bus, so we're not transporting a high number of students with special needs because they are integrated on our buses, in most cases. Because of our size, we do have a number of special programs and we have private conveyance to transport students to those particular programs. It could be for skilled trades, for instance, that's the bulk of our private conveyance.

MR. BAIN: Most of that private conveyance would be by automobile, am I correct?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, that's right.

MR. BAIN: Since we're talking automobiles, if you or I got into our cars we would have to buckle up. What about the policy of seatbelts on school buses?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: The interesting thing about school buses is that they're constructed specifically not to require seatbelts and that, I think, is perhaps not always well known to the public. In fact, the very design is that the level of safety for students in buses without seatbelts is very, very high. The discussion about whether or not seatbelts are required is quite a different discussion relative to automobiles.

MR. BAIN: I'm just going to ask one more question, Madam Chair before I turn it over to my colleague. You said that you work closely with the URB and have made a lot of changes since the AG's Report for that matter. If there was somebody from the URB sitting beside you there right now, what would his or her response be to the progress?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Well, I had an opportunity to have that conversation both with our local inspector and with David White, who looks after the Motor Carrier Branch. I know that they would both say that they're very pleased with the direction in which we are moving, they're pleased with the improvements that they've seen. One of their observations is that they can also see a difference in staff morale. I've talked a lot about transportation, but we're also focusing on our human resource side. One of the priorities of our board is that we do have very clear job descriptions, very clear standards and consequences - positive and negative, for lack of a better term - for folks around those standards.

The changes in our transportation department, where we did very well in our most recent inspection and that feedback directly to our mechanics in particular and the rest of our staff is very positive. The URB inspector noted the improvement in the attitudes, not that it was negative, but he really could feel that our people are proud of the work that they're doing.

MR. BAIN: Thank you, it is certainly very good to hear that, too. I'll turn the time over to my colleague, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Certainly. I recognize Mr. Dunn.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you, Madam Chair and good morning to all of you. For 30 years, I worked in the school system - 15 years as an administrator in the last school board, with the Chignecto Central Regional School Board. I certainly have a little idea of all of the challenges that you have with regard to budget restraints, dealing with personnel, maintenance and so on. It's an extremely challenging job and I'm sure you'll do very, very well. Through my 30 years in the school system, I never met anyone that the top priority wasn't the safety of school children and it's extremely difficult at times and so on.

You mentioned that you had worked for other school boards - do you want to expand on that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I had worked for the Kings County School Board, I was curriculum person and I was the assistant superintendent for human resources with the former Kings County board and I was director of programs and student services with Annapolis Valley Regional School Board. I was five years at the Department of Education in French program services.

MR. DUNN: You've been very busy. The question you had mentioned about trying to balance budgets and so on and if unable to, there would be significant impacts. Could you

expand on that as far as where would the significant impacts be if you're unable to sort of balance things?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Because the bulk of our budget is allocated to people, so to staff - if we were to have to re-balance this year's budget without the surplus, we would trim in every area that we possibly could. We would protect the classroom as much as we could, but we would have to reduce in every area of the operation.

One of the challenges with school board budgeting is by the time the school year ends, we're well into the fiscal year - so the fiscal year starts April 1^st and our school year ends June 30^th. We have only from basically August 1^st until the end of March to recoup any shortfalls that we might have in that budget because we've already spent quite a bit. We are going through this exercise actually right now, so we would look at every single area of the operation and we would reduce. In terms of this conversation, it is clear that we would have to make reductions in transportation, we would have to make reductions in property services, we would have to make reductions, certainly, in supports to students. We would do everything that we could to protect the classroom.

We have had some fabulous enhancements in the last few years and it does show in the pupil-teacher ratio. Guidance would be an example, we've been able to offer guidance services at every level in our school system, in our region, we're very happy about that. We have mentors in place to support teachers in technology, mathematics and literacy, and we've been able to exceed the targeted funding that we did receive. So I'm not saying it would be those specific areas, but we would need to look at every area of operation in order to trim back.

MR. DUNN: Do you ever have the opportunity to meet maybe even once on an annual basis with other superintendents within the province?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, we meet every month.

MR. DUNN: With regard to transportation and providing wheelchair accessible transportation for students, is that a problem for your board or is it something that has been addressed and is adequate?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, we have a number of Access-A-Buses, we have a number of school buses that are wheelchair accessible. What we do in terms of transportation of students in wheelchairs is that our transportation staff works very closely with our program staff. Program staff would know every single child, where they live, what their abilities are and what supports they require, so they would work hand in hand with transportation in terms of can they be picked up on a bus, where will we use these particular buses? If we had one student who required special transportation that might end up being private conveyance, but that is literally done one student at a time, who is it, where does she

live, what are her needs, what is the school, how will we get her to school, how will we make sure she's not late for school?

MR. DUNN: Do you have any examples where you may have an educational assistant travelling with a student on the buses?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We do have some, yes.

MR. DUNN: I know in my past experience we had problems acquiring part-time drivers. Is that a concern with your board at the present time?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It's always an ongoing concern with drivers. The challenge we have is keeping trained spare drivers on rotation and having them get enough work time that it actually is feasible for them to continue to be on our spare list, so it is always a challenge.

MR. DUNN: I can think of another challenge that you may have and it's with regard to going through your bus evacuation procedures early in the school year, with such a big area to cover. Are there times when you just cannot meet that particular goal of having every school involved with bus evacuation?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It was one of the areas the Auditor General's team did pick up and so we have paid attention to it. Anita Conrad, who is here with us, she actually attends every one of those evacuation procedures, so they are scheduled with the principal and then she does participate. It is a challenge in our large schools to have a bus evacuation drill, in a very large school it's not an easy thing, but it is absolutely necessary.

We have had a couple of situations, luckily, last year one that ended up no one was injured, but the bus had to be evacuated on the side of the road and it went like clockwork. That, in hindsight, because there were no injuries and no severe damage, ended up being actually quite a good thing in the sense that our school staff could see the benefit of practising the evacuation, that when the driver understands and the children understand, how very efficient it can be. So it's always a struggle because our teachers are always concerned with student safety, but they're very concerned with teaching. Sometimes they see some of the other practices we have to do, they do them, they understand them, but they would sooner have their students in their classes learning.

MR. DUNN: Yes. What is the average age of your bus fleet?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Do you mind if I just turn away for a moment?

MR. DUNN: Sure, absolutely.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Five or six years.

MR. DUNN: How many replacements do you have per year?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We receive, on rotation, 10 per year.

MR. DUNN: Okay. You mentioned - jumping to something else here - about students with severe medical problems, behavioural problems and so on. In your school board, do you feel you have sufficient numbers of personnel to address these types of students, such as psychologists and so on? It's often an ongoing problem in other boards.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: There are two concerns. We could always use more professional supports and that's an area in which we're trying to move, we're trying to increase our professional staff and not increase our paraprofessional staff, and they provide a very valuable service, but our highest-needs students really need more professional staff. There is a shortage, particularly in speech-language pathologists and psychologists, so yes, it is an ongoing challenge.

We are quite fortunate on the South Shore in that we offer a fabulous place to live and each year we have, not necessarily psychologists and speech-language pathologists, but we are sometimes able to attract people who have been away and want to come back, because we're a delightful spot to work into retirement. Even having one professional per year who chooses to come to our area is a huge help, but yes, it's definitely an ongoing challenge throughout the entire province.

MR. DUNN: You mentioned you had approximately one plumber for roughly 33, 34 schools. What about boiler maintenance?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have one burner technician for our schools - Barry would be able to speak to that.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Butler.

MR. BARRY BUTLER: One controls technician and two carpenters and two electricians.

MR. DUNN: Earlier in your comments you were talking about snow removal, contract versus paying as it snows. Do you look at that every year and perhaps change, or do you strictly stay with one plan?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We would review how we offer our services each year. Since I've been here it hasn't been a particular area that we've sat down and looked at, to be perfectly honest, because we've set priorities for where to focus our attention and that

hasn't come. The other thing is we have been without a director of operations since January 2008, so I've picked up much of the load of the operations department. I've done a lot of jobs, but it's my first time looking after operations directly, so there are some areas on which our new director will focus that we've simply had to set aside because we have been short-staffed.

If I might just say, it has been phenomenal how our staff has stepped up to the plate and filled in during the absence of a director. Everybody has worked collaboratively as a team and we've made huge progress, in spite of the fact that we had a key position vacant.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, the time has now expired for the PC caucus.

The next round will be 12 minutes per caucus. I recognize Mr. Wilson for the NDP caucus.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'll be sharing my time with my colleague. I'm glad that you went back to mention your concerns around your need to access the $1.1 million surplus for this year's budget. I noticed you did comment on that in your material, in your closing comments, in the material you provided to us. You also make mention of your concern for the 2009-10 budget, that if you see any reduction you'll have a difficult time to address the concerns that the Auditor General has brought forward. I just wanted to make sure that's correct, that if you see a reduction in your next budget there's no real hope of addressing the remainder of the issues that the Auditor General's Report had brought forward?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: That is correct. There are some one-time expenses we won't need again, I mentioned the renovations - when the renovations are done, they're done. We will, regardless of the budget, continue to focus on safety issues, but that means we would have to have reductions in other areas. We do have to balance our budget, so it would be a significant increased challenge to do that.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): That concerns me when you see comments from yourself that say there would have to be severe cuts to all areas of education. We'll continue to pressure the government to ensure that they realize the importance of your budget, especially in the coming years.

So here we are talking about the Auditor General's Report, the issues there, some of the deficiencies, but also in that report it talked about - and I know you've had an assessment done on the school conditions in Queens and in Lunenburg County - coming up with a deferred maintenance project. It just makes me wonder what you've been able to address in those areas. I know you have identified three areas of must-do/should-do/could-do.

The Auditor General had made mention that he was concerned that the maintenance projects, which could have a negative impact on the health and safety of students, that were identified several years ago, have not been completed. On those lists - the must-do/should-do/could-do - the must-do, which are serious code violations and other situations threatening the health and safety and short-term preservation of assets, have you been able to address the projects that are on that list?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Any project that's truly a student safety issue gets addressed first, so everything else waits, so we do those. It's the should-do/could-do list that is long. I went back in preparation a few years ago, the should-do list was about $11 million. Now, we think we would need about $5 million in order to catch up on all of the should-dos, but we always do the safety ones. I would acknowledge what the team did point out, and that is we weren't monitoring our must-do/should-do/could-do list as well as we should have. A principal might say this is a must-do, although we knew when we reviewed it, it wasn't actually a must-do. We didn't pull it off the must-do list and so that created the impression that we had an enormous number of must-do items to which we didn't pay attention. So one of the things we're working at is making sure that if it's on the must-do list, it truly is must-do.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): In the Auditor General's Report it mentions that the must-do, there were nine projects estimated at $821,000 and it was indicated that these projects weren't done. Is that correct?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Some of them we have been able to move forward on, but we have not been able to move forward on all of them. Any that are specific safety issues, we would have moved on.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid) Then under the should-do/could-do list, it stated there were projects with an estimated cost of about $249,000 that should have been considered from the 2005-06 school year. It said here these projects had not been completed, is that correct?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: That would be accurate and that would happen each year. Our operations department would plan its budget, it would have its revenue which is very limited. The budget for this current fiscal year, we have $486,000 to invest in that and some of that is from the surplus. What would happen, for example, we just had a project in one of our schools where we had a complaint from a staff person - legitimate - around a mould issue. It was not on the list, but because it's a safety issue it gets done, so that project would get dealt with immediately and if it happened to be on a weekend, which it was, then we would pay the overtime costs for the weekend. That means that something on the list that

was planned, drops off the bottom because there's no money. So it's a constant fluctuation of response to what you must do and things drop off the bottom.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): So I guess it's a matter of priorities, and you make your priorities just like government makes its priorities. What concerns me is when I see a figure like $249,000 and we have a government that's willing to spend $250,000 on child ATVs, yet here we have a school board that's looking for $249,000 to do a should-do/could-do list that has an impact on student health and safety - I know you're not going to comment on that, but it concerns me. So with the remainder of my time, I'll pass it to my colleague.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. I recognize Ms. Conrad.

MS. VICKI CONRAD: I want to thank you for being here again because I just commend all of you with the board for moving so quickly on the Auditor General's Report. Since my time in this seat, it has been a pleasure to get to know the board on a more intimate level and certainly I recognize all of the good work that the board has done. You're a good, strong, working board and that means a lot. We do have a lot of challenges and the board has a lot of challenges in terms of those transportation issues, especially in regard to our roads.

I just want to let you know that in my conversations with the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal about our road conditions, I constantly remind him about the importance of the safety of our roads, especially with our school buses carrying our children across those gravel roads and roads with potholes and dealing with bush issues now, in terms of safety.

I want to talk about the three renovation projects and also the two new schools. I'm assuming that one of those new schools would be the South Queens Junior High School.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes.

MS. CONRAD: I'm wondering whether the board has heard back from the department whether or not that school will be moved onto the capital projects list, because it was slated for renovations for a number of years and those renovations had not been approved until perhaps the 2009-10 budget. I know the board has made a request to move that school under the capital projects. Has the board heard back from the department?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No, we haven't heard. We did submit our list in July and we reiterated that list again recently and we did have visits. Our understanding is that the capital list will be prepared by mid-October and so we didn't anticipate hearing until mid- to late October, so we haven't had a response yet, other than the fact that our list has been received.

MS. CONRAD: In terms of health and safety for the students and staff in that school, because we know the deterioration of that school has been rapidly increasing over the last couple of years and certainly where no renovations have been able to take place in a significant manner, does the board feel that there is an issue around the health and safety of the students if that school is not replaced within the immediate short term?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We've been able to respond to each concern that has been raised in the school but the board feels very strongly - and I think we can document - that it is much more fiscally responsible to invest in a new building than it is for us to try to continue to respond to issues that arise. It has deteriorated significantly since the last report. So we are able to respond when an issue is raised but we do believe that we are close to the point where the repairs to the building will reach the point where it makes a lot more sense fiscally, and also in the long term for students, to replace that building.

MS. CONRAD: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: The time has expired for the NDP caucus. I recognize Ms. Whalen for the Liberal caucus.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much, and was it 12 minutes?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, 12 minutes.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you, that's great. There are quite a few questions here so I'll just get going on it. You say in one of your responses to the Auditor General's points about having hired the fleet manager, that there have now been significant improvements to the system. Can you tell me, because it's only a short four months - could you go through a couple of the things that have been done, sort of right away, right off the top?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Processes for dealing with buses as they come in. So when we had one person who was responsible for everything in transportation, the reality is that there were large periods of time when she simply couldn't be on or near the shop floor, to provide a concrete example.

We now have a fleet coordinator who is responsible for that. We built a new office with a window overseeing the shop floor so he is there on site. Unless he has to be at our Caledonia garage or out looking after a bus, he is there on site supporting the mechanics who are on the floor. So that has had a significant impact.

He has the time to dedicate to some efficient processes for knowing where buses are, when they are coming in, when they are going out, who has which bus.

One of the other things that our manager and our coordinator have done collaboratively is, we've switched from referring to buses by the number of the bus - other than for service - to a route system, so the children are always on the same route. So if we have a substitute bus, we just put the route number on the new bus. It may sound like a small thing, unless you're six years old and you are in Primary and you are on a different bus.

Some of those efficiencies have helped tremendously. On some level they're quite small, but they're enormous.

MS. WHALEN: I certainly believe that often very small changes can have tremendous impacts and make a big difference in sort of that tipping point between doing really well and having issues.

In the question that we were talking about earlier, about whether not passing the safety inspection is the same or isn't the same as meaning a bus isn't safe, the Auditor General used the figure that 75 per cent of the safety issues required the buses to be pulled off the road and I gather that was from the buses that the Auditor General had sampled. I realize it was a sample, it wasn't the complete fleet, but that seems very high. Now what standard would the Auditor General have used? Simply that it didn't pass the safety inspection?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: There would be some infractions where the bus still could go on the road but what the Auditor General's team reported is in the 75 per cent, something had to be fixed before the bus could go back on the road. So again, that could be something significant but it could be something that did not - in most cases, it was something that did not place the children at risk.

MS. WHALEN: What percentage might you have said would have been more of a risk, so that we don't take it as 75 per cent of the buses are a safety hazard?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I met with all of our mechanics when the Auditor General's Report came out and in speaking with our mechanics, they were adamant that they never let a bus leave the shop that wasn't safe for children to be on, and they were very offended. They felt it was very personal for them. We worked through it and we talked about safety inspections and the difference in the language, but they were very adamant with me that they would never allow a bus to leave the shop that was not safe for children. It might have something, as it obviously did, that didn't pass the safety inspection but that's quite different.

MS. WHALEN: So it was just when I read that figure and taking in your earlier comment, I just thought it was important to explore it further. I think that is very reassuring, again, that the employees take their work so seriously and that they recognize the importance of safety, as would anybody in public transportation but it is a very important issue for all of us.

I just want to go to the Child Abuse Registry and criminal record checks and the comments that the Auditor General had made there, that more needed to be done. What I took was your response to that, that it would be good, I guess you've said here - in the first response from February, the feasibility of completing such checks on all staff on a regular basis is questionable. I wondered if we could just look at that a little bit more, in terms of what's needed.

You talked about, and again in the update in October, that you need a clearly defined provincial strategy to deal with tenured union employees, so I don't know if that means there's some complications around the union employees. I guess I'd like to know what would we do in a perfect world because all of us, as MLAs, sign the Child Abuse Registry forms. We know that particularly with volunteers and others who are working in sports and so on, we see a lot of them. I don't know what is required or what would make it possible for you to meet the standards that the province seems to have set.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: When the province made a decision to move forward - and I'll speak specifically of school boards since that's the group with which we were involved - it was a decision to implement this on a go-forward basis. So the human resource folks from all of the boards were involved and it was a go-forward policy, which is very typical of policies, whether it's safety or other issues it's go-forward.

The Auditor General's recommendation is that it not be a go-forward policy but it be an all inclusive policy for all staff and that there would be rechecks. The rechecks part is simply a question of cost for employees or personnel, to make sure that happens. So that can be done - the recheck.

The other thing on a go-forward basis is that we could inform new hires that this will be the case - that there will be a recheck every so many years - so that's less problematic. The challenge we see is, in order to implement this we would need to work with the province and with the other boards to determine how we would handle tenured employees who have been with us for a very long time who might not, in fact, pass one or both of those checks. So we would just need to have a process in place.

My comments are not designed in any way to disagree with the intent of the recommendation but it's just to say that when any process is implemented we would need to make sure that we knew exactly how we were going to implement it and how we would deal with each situation that could arise. So it's not something where we receive the report and say, we'll start that next month - we really need to make sure that we're ready.

MS. WHALEN: Are you talking about both things, the Child Abuse Registry and the criminal records check?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes. The other piece I would say is that we have again very good working relationships with our partners in the other agencies. There are processes in place to inform boards when there are issues of concern, so we are informed. I think the point being is that we don't have a formal operational process to do it.

MS. WHALEN: When were these new systems brought into place, the requirement that all volunteers and - I'm just wondering how many years have you had to deal with this? It's relatively new for me in terms of signing the Child Abuse Registry, that's only been maybe five years if I'm not mistaken?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes. I actually can't recall the exact date when it was implemented. It is five or six years I think, but I don't have the exact date when that was . . .

MS. WHALEN: So is it fair to say you haven't gone back to look at all the employees who were currently in the system at that time? Your intent was to screen everybody who came in new?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: The implementation province-wide for school boards was a go-forward basis, every new hire after that date. My understanding was that over a period of time, everybody would be captured. The bulk of our employees, because they have been hired since the implementation, would have gone through the screening and all volunteers have gone through the screening. The only question are people who would have been hired before that legislation was in place.

MS. WHALEN: Are you saying the majority of your staff now would have been hired in the last five or six years? I would have thought a lot of the teachers are due to retire, we keep talking about the age of our teachers.

[10:30 a.m.]

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I wouldn't use the word "majority".

MS. WHALEN: No, but you're capturing many now in the last five years. Was there an intent, as you say at this point now that it has been in place for over five years, that the school boards would change their implementation and look to go back to those tenured, unionized employees?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: In speaking with the people responsible for human resources, one of the many positive spinoffs of this report is that the human resource directors and department people are talking about this at this point in time. They are looking at the recommendation and how it would be handled. I would say there is at least one board who does do rechecks on employees, so there is a precedent for doing rechecks.

MS. WHALEN: Can you say which board it might be?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I would want to be positive of which board before I said.

MS. WHALEN: Okay. But there may be one, you're suggesting?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I'm very confident that there is at least one.

MS. WHALEN: And they're doing that in the absence of what you've said was a clearly defined provincial strategy to deal with tendered, unionized employees - that was in the answer to that October update. I'm just wondering, are you hesitant to do it because of lack of resources - is that primarily it? If the province came up with this provincial strategy then they would be, I guess, outlining a requirement and perhaps resourcing it as well?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We have a fabulous working relationship with our unionized groups and our non-unionized groups. So before we would fully implement a policy such as this, we would need to take the time to sit with each of our groups and talk through with them what implementation looks like and how we would deal with the results that we would find. That has been the way that we have always dealt with implementation of a new policy. It wouldn't be our way to implement a policy and then detail after the fact how we would actually do it; we need to make sure. That is typical of policy development and implementation - you draft your policy but then you need to make sure you know every possible impact of implementation before you move forward.

The other complicating factor for us to be perfectly honest is, we knew our human resources director was retiring at the end of June. We're in the process of hiring a new human resources director and this will be one of the priorities for him or her to look at. So when we looked at all of the recommendations we made some informed decisions about which ones that we had to act on immediately, which ones we would be better served to set aside so that we could do a thorough job.

MS. WHALEN: This is one of your priorities? From the update, I wasn't sure that it was, that it was just something waiting on a provincial strategy or waiting on more direction, but you would say you'll look at this regardless.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes and our human resources director and now the person acting in that position have both discussed this with their colleagues at the provincial level. The human resources directors, like the other folks, meet monthly.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, I think that's important. Do I have just a couple of minutes?

MADAM CHAIR: You have two minutes.

MS. WHALEN: Just two minutes. I'd like to quickly go back to the question that was raised earlier about seatbelts in buses. A few years ago I had brought in a bill on booster seats for children in our passenger cars and vehicles and that passed. At the time, some of the discussion in the media, with columnists and whatnot was, why don't we have the same safety concerns for students on school buses? I know in other countries they do have seatbelts on buses, so I'm wondering if you could explain again why you don't see this as practical? Just what discussions you've had along this since we are really primarily talking today about school transportation.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: My own stance, as superintendent, on seatbelts in buses would be this - if our buses begin to have seatbelts, we would use them. I'm not saying that to be flippant, but I'm saying that there has been a lot of discussion around seatbelts on buses and the extent to which they increase the safety of students and whether or not they are actually needed. So our role as a school board wouldn't be to make a unilateral decision around seatbelts, but it would be to work collaboratively with the province and with the other boards around that decision, as we did with the booster seats on buses for children who are under a certain weight and under a certain height.

So I don't have a personal stance or a superintendent's stance, nor does our board, on seatbelts. I was, in response to the question, pointing out that the safety of children on buses has been an enormous focus, both in the industry nationally and provincially and that the way they are constructed is designed to protect them without seatbelts. I'm not at all against seatbelts on buses. It would be a question about if the decision were made from a safety perspective that it were better, then we would train our drivers and our students to use seatbelts on buses.

MS. WHALEN: Okay. Can you just tell me about the booster seats? Is there currently a requirement for students under that size on school buses?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: It's not booster seats, it's integrated child seats. Our new buses have a specific number of seats that are designed for children who weigh less than 40 pounds and are below a certain height. The first children picked up whose families agree that they should be in those seats, do use those seats.

MS. WHALEN: And they're called integrated child seats?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Integrated child safety seats.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, the time has now expired for the Liberal caucus. I recognize Mr. Dunn for the PC caucus, you have 12 minutes.

MR. DUNN: You mentioned earlier in one of your answers that you had no dollars for busing deficiencies. My question is, did you receive any extra funding for other areas which helped you balance your budget?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, we did. Just to go back, if I said we had no money for bus deficiencies that wasn't my intent. The intent of my response was to say that we always have money in our budget to support our transportation department. In this particular year, we increased that significantly in order to catch up, as it were, on some of the deficiencies that we had. We did receive help with fuel this year which was an enormous help for us, $185,000 in terms of furnace oil and $38,000 in terms of diesel. We also received some increased revenue to help with deferred maintenance - $122,600 to help with deferred maintenance, so we did get some help. Then we had some outstanding revenue and we were able to access our surplus, so yes, we did get some relief. The fuel relief was enormous for school boards, it really made a big difference.

MR. DUNN: Are students allowed to drive students in your board with regard to going to extra curricular activities like sport venues and so on?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No, students are not allowed to drive other students. If there was an event - I always say this because everyone knows a student who drives a student - that was in the evening so students had been transported home, or it was on a weekend and students are attending an event, then it is a family decision how they get there. We would always hear, I know my neighbour's son drove his friend to an event and that can happen if it's outside school hours and the families are responsible for having their children arrive at an event.

MR. DUNN: If students are leaving the school prior to going to whatever - concerts, sports, sporting event, whatever - the drivers could be parents, relatives, adults. Are they obliged to fill out an insurance form for the school to have it present at the school in case of an incident?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: We're very, very clear when it is a school-sponsored event. If our students are going on a curricular-related trip, perhaps related to an oceans course, we are completely responsible for organizing that transportation. So if parents are driving then they have to fill out the appropriate form and the appropriate insurance. We do have families who choose to have their own children drive to school who have a licence. Getting themselves to school and opting not to use the board transportation is a different question from students attending a school event.

MR. DUNN: Another question dealing with dollar shortfalls for these demands on any school board in the province. There was a comment made by one of my colleagues this morning about the dollar shortfall and this is creating severe cuts to your school board where it would create negative impact. It is my belief that in the totality of the whole thing with a

school board, if there is a dollar shortfall, they can decrease or cut from many, many areas where the impact is not severe. Could you comment on that?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Yes, my own comments - I'm quite worried about 2009-10. We were able to balance our budget this year, we were able to continue the enhancements that have been supported by the Department of Education for 2008-09. Because of the access that we do have, we do have some wonderful enhancements this year. My worry is looking at 2009-10. The way we balance our budget is that we look at every area we possibly can and we trim wherever we can in order to balance it. It typically is the last million dollars in a $68 million budget that is the hardest and we work as a team in order to balance that and say, what will we do, what will we defer. But yes, there are many areas where we continue to trim or we defer. For this particular year, because of the support that we have received, our budget is balanced and we have quality programming for students.

MR. DUNN: Is there any opportunity that you may have a surplus, perhaps, to carry over to 2009-10?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: I don't believe and it's quite nerve-racking for our finance director, who's a fabulous finance director and we have allocated every penny we have in this point in time in order to balance the budget.

MR. DUNN: Perhaps one last question and it's dealing with safety inspections not being completed by a certain date. My question is, in your opinion, was there any time where the safety of the students with regard to transportation was ever in jeopardy?

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: No, I don't believe there was ever any time when the safety of students was at jeopardy. The point of the review of the inspections is that if we continued to not pay attention to meeting the safety inspections, there could have been potential in the future, but at no point in time were our buses unsafe.

MR. DUNN: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: That concludes the portion of our meeting reserved for questions. I now would ask if you have any concluding comments.

MS. PYNCH-WORTHYLAKE: Thank you very much. I would just say in conclusion that we're very pleased with the improvements that we've made, we worked in great collaboration with the Auditor General's team, we understood the mandate that we had. We did feel that the tone of the report was negative in its orientation and we understood that the scope of the audit was not to highlight the many positive things going on in our operations department but was to highlight deficiencies that we had, and we have responded to those. As I mentioned earlier, from a staff perspective, they would love to have seen some of the positive things reported on and that didn't happen.

We'll continue to work very hard, in terms of student safety, and I think I've mentioned already my concerns in budgeting for upcoming years and our request that budgeting throughout the province for school boards is fairly distributed among all the boards. We look forward to continuing, through our elections, with our new board.

We have a very open approach. We're a public board and everything we have is open to the public and we're always happy to share.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much, on behalf of the members of the committee, for being here today and for answering our questions.

At this stage, we're going to take a very short recess. Our guests will be able to leave. We'll reconvene at 10 minutes to the hour to conclude the other business on our agenda. Thank you.

[10:44 a.m. The committee recessed.]

[10:53 a.m. The committee reconvened.]

MADAM CHAIR: Order, I'll call the committee back to order. We have two items on our agenda from our last meeting. You'll remember that last time we had the final Auditor General's Report on the Nominee Program. The subcommittee had reserved some time on its agenda, in terms of filling up the dates in October, in the event that the committee wanted to bring witnesses further to the Nominee Program, coming out of the Auditor General's Report. That is one item we need to discuss.

The other thing is we have Mr. Hebb with us today, Legislative Counsel, to talk with us about the warrants, the subpoenas which were issued back in July, and how we wish to proceed around that. So let's start first with subsequent witnesses, pursuant to the Auditor General's Report. Mr. Wilson.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Thank you. I think in light of the recent report released by the Auditor General that we do call back the Deputy Ministers of Immigration and Economic Development to get an update on the government's response and what they've done since the earlier report, and have this committee have time to ask them questions on what the government has been doing over the last several months.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: I would concur with that, I think that's a good idea. Before we decide on that, we had some discussions before the meeting started - how many meetings are we going to have this month? Before we decide on that, I think that's important.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay. We have no further meetings booked in the month of October. However, we could certainly look at having meetings on the 15^th, for example. Now, Darlene has pointed out that the select committee on democracy is touring the province the last two weeks in October. There are quite a few members of this committee on the select committee; Mr. Dunn is on the select committee, I'm on the select committee, Graham Steele is on the select committee - I'm not sure if there's anyone from your caucus . . .

MR. COLWELL: None of our people are, no.

MADAM CHAIR: Now conceivably we can, because I think the meetings on the 22^nd and the 29^th are in Truro and Kentville, so it is doable that we have a morning Public Accounts Committee meeting and then we go off to those meetings, but it is kind of pushing the envelope. So it's really up to members of the committee whether or not you want to meet on the 22^nd and the 29^th - I leave that up to you.

MS. WHALEN: That would be in your absence, would it, Madam Chair?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes. Well, in our absence . . .

MS. WHALEN: You'd be away the 22^nd and 29^th, is really what I'm checking - yourself, Graham Steele, perhaps (Interruptions)

MADAM CHAIR: There are four members of the committee.

MS. WHALEN: Okay.

MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you, and just to let the committee know, I'm away, as well, on a bit of a holiday out of the country, so I guess as the vice-chairman - I think that's still my role, the vice-chairman - I wouldn't be present either.

MADAM CHAIR: I guess what I'm saying is, I've already planned that there might be a possibility that both things would be going on and I can manage it from Halifax, because I live here. It's not difficult for me to drive to Truro and come back, or have the meeting here and drive up to Truro, or drive to Kentville - it's an hour, that is doable. However, I don't know what the majority of people on the committee would like to do. It's not as easy for Mr. Bain and Mr. Dunn, that's certain. Mr. Colwell.

MR. COLWELL: Madam Chair, it doesn't matter to me because I'm not affected by this, but I think we should hear from Mr. Bain and Mr. Dunn and if they feel it's too difficult for them to do it, I'd be in favour of that.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay.

MR. DUNN: I'd prefer if we just kind of push it off until we get this democratic process committee touring finished.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, so it does leave next week open to bring in perhaps Immigration and Economic Development. Yes? Okay.

So I guess we'll do that as a motion, just so it's approved by the committee. So putting words in Mr. Wilson's mouth, the motion is that we bring the deputy ministers from those two departments in.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

So we've just added them to our list and you will see that we have other witnesses scheduled in November for our meetings. So we have Health Promotion and Protection and DNR on the Off Highway Vehicle Buy-Back Program on November 5^th; the Department of Health on Scotia Surgery on November 12^th; and then the Auditor General - in camera, with his report on the 19^th, and a public session on the 26^th.

[11:00 a.m.]

The other thing that the clerk has asked me to seek some clarity with you around is, how late in December do you wish to meet? Generally speaking, we go until about the 12^th - I think last year our last meeting was around December 12^th, so we actually could meet until the 10^th - let's say Wednesday, December 10^th. That would mean we would adjourn meetings until January. Is that agreeable to you? Yes, okay, great, perfect. Okay, we're all so agreeable today.

So let's hear from Mr. Hebb, then, on the subpoenas.

MR. GORDON HEBB: Well, Madam Chair, I'm not sure that I really have much to say. I don't think it's really a legal question but I find it a little untidy to leave the warrants hanging. The government has not responded to them but they did respond in the sense that they made the documents available to the Auditor General, which is my understanding was the impetus for the subpoenas.

My advice would be that the committee really should either act on the failure or they should withdraw them. If the committee is satisfied that they achieved what they did, rather than leaving them just sitting there and doing nothing, it would be much tidier to vacate them, if the committee is satisfied with what's happened, that's all. It's just a question of

tidiness, it's not really a legal question. To leave them sitting there, because there are subpoenas there that haven't been complied with, it doesn't look good to leave them sitting there. I just think you should tidy it up, that's all.

MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Bain.

MR. BAIN: Thanks, Madam Chair. I think, in fact, the information was provided to the AG's Department. If it's in order, I would make a motion that the subpoenas be withdrawn.

MADAM CHAIR: The motion would be in order. Is there any discussion on the motion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Is there any further business? Mr. Hebb.

MR. HEBB: I just suggest that the people to whom the subpoenas were directed should be advised that the committee has withdrawn those subpoenas.

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, we'll definitely write and advise them of this.

Is there any further business? Hearing none, we stand adjourned. Thank you.

[The committee adjourned at 11:02 a.m.]