February 21, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The bureaucrats use the words “transparency” and “accountable” when they talk about the work they do. It is the citizens that employ these bureaucrats that insist on both the transparency and for the bureaucrats to be accountable.
Dave Myers, a retired senior who gets away to ski a little from time to time has sat in on all of the Program and Accommodation Review (PARC) meeting and found himself wondering about some of the data the public was being given.
Myers was in sales and marketing and the costs of a product or service are things he can get his head around.
Burlington is currently undergoing a Program and Accommodation Review that may lead to the closure of one or more high schools in the city. A PARC with two parents from each of the seven high schools has been meeting to discuss closure options. The meetings are open to the public.
Myers, a parent, not on the PARC, who has attended these meetings and reviewed the information provided to the PARC believes there are several concerns about the renewal costs for Burlington High Schools.
On Thursday February 17th at the Burlington Secondary High School PARC meeting, Halton District School Board Superintendent, Gerry Cullen explained how high schools are maintained and upgraded.
Myers believes Cullen clearly recognized that there was an error in the data presented in the November 6thSchool Information Package (SIP). SIP’s are documents that have more information than anyone could want on the condition of a high school. The data is available on the school board web site.
Adding to the confusion Myers says PARC members were told previously that the January 24th SIP renewal costs, that were hugely different than they were on November 6th, were incorrect and new data would be forthcoming.
At Thursday’s PARC working meeting #4, Cullen said, that actually the January 24th SIP renewal costs were correct and expressed 100% confidence in this information.
So, wonders Myers: “the data’s correct, sorry that data is incorrect and here’s the new data, no it’s incorrect, more new data coming, no, no, sorry the data is correct, and we’re 100% confident this time. Confused? Trusting?”
In the HDSB’s January 24th SIP both historical and projected renewal costs are presented, let’s look at those historical costs.
Are these in fact “actual real costs” or historical budgeted costs?
Myers took the HDSB’s historical costs and compared them annually by school.
When the information is presented this way, a few other observations and questions arise. Myers points out that:
This is a 10 year view (2004 – 2013), why is data included for 2015 for two of the schools only?
No renewal work was done for Pearson and Nelson in 2008, and for 2 consecutive years at Bateman and Pearson?
The total cost for Aldershot does not balance with the January 24th SIP data.
Almost $8M was spent on renewals in 2005, then only $821,000 in 2013, a ten-fold decrease?
Cullen explained that renewals were managed and planned to take out the yearly ups and downs.
There are more questions that can be raised, but scratching at the surface suggests a data quality/data integrity concern said Myers.
Some have already questioned the projected renewal costs for our high schools by. Myers looked at this information closely and has questions regarding its quality and accuracy.
First of all, according to the foot notes in the January 24th SIP the data for renewals is based on inspections completed in 2011, so the information is 6 years old as of today! I don’t recall Mr. Cullen communicating that to the PARC representatives.
The inspectors at the time were making predictions of renewal costs for 10 years into the future or to 2021 – how good was their crystal ball?
Why would the HDSB not complete a more recent series of inspections in, say 2016, knowing it was going to undertake a PAR?
But most interestingly, only Central shows work for 2020 and 2021. How is it possible that there is no identified renewal work for Aldershot after 2014; Pearson after 2018; MM Robinson 2015-2020; Nelson after 2015; Bateman after 2018?
Is data missing, or not being reported? Or has the HDSB completed work for other schools that were lower priority than renewal required work for Central?
Myers also looked closely at the actual renewal costs that Cullen has put forward for Central:
$1.9M for a new roof at Central, Historical SIP and Google Earth shows that some roof sections are new – has this been accounted for in the estimate?.
The SIP data also shows that roof replacements (if accurate) had been completed at Nelson, Bateman, Pearson and Aldershot with Central being one of the last in the cycle. So are we making decisions for students based on scheduled roof repairs?
Why did the HDSB put a brand-new roof on portables at Pearson with enrollment at 392 students in a school with a student capacity of 642 students in the permanent building and 936 students when the portables are included. Would it have been more cost efficient to remove these portables as they were not needed, not to mention an eyesore and detract visually from the school?
Fittings Auditorium Seating – $159,000; the auditorium at Central was completely renovated five years ago for $120,000 and largely paid for by fundraising at the school. All the seats are new. Fittings for the seats are budgeted to cost more than the entire renovation?
$280,000 for roadway and parking lots and Pedestrian walkways at Central. Myers inspected the asphalt surfaces at Central and all other high schools and found Central to be typical in condition to the other schools, and in fact more than acceptable. Nelson and MM Robinson appear to require more pavement work yet Nelson shows $0 and MM Robinson only Shows $96,000?
It appears most if not all windows at Central have been replaced, yet $38,000 is called out for new windows.
$1.6M is required for various heating and ventilation system renewals at Central, a boiler was replaced and much work was done to the heating system historically.
Studies – $71,000 for Central, albeit a small item, approximately $30,000 is carried for studies for the other schools, so studies at Central are twice that at other schools?
So what, asks Myers, is the PARC supposed to do with this data? It is clear that the data is incomplete and inconsistent among schools at best, and potentially prejudicial to a few schools at worst, especially one of the schools named in the original closure recommendation (Central).
As such, the PARC should be very careful about making any decisions based on these numbers. In fact, they have been advised by the PARC chair “not to focus on the numbers.”
That is all well and good, however, says Myers, the “bell has been rung” already by providing these numbers, and it is very difficult to walk it back and for PARC members to un-hear or forget the costs they have been given for the five year renewal costs.
Further, the HDSB has not taken significant efforts to correct this data and provide a more complete, consistent set of numbers for the PARC to review. That remains a significant problem with this process, one of many already raised about the quality of the information being provided to the PARC on which they are to base their deliberations.
If the data cannot be trusted and if the Board of Education chooses not to respond or provide valid data is the PARC process Burlington is currently going through valid?
Is it transparent?
Are the bureaucrats accountable?
Doesn’t look that way does it.
All the data, the debate and the serious citizen concern are headed towards the trustees – one can only hope that they will be both transparent and accountable and put a stop to this farce.
The HDSB budget is allocated to Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Halton hills.
You would need the above chart for all of the above to understand where and how the dollars were distributed.
Large discrepancies from year to year could simply be the way the available dollars were distributed between the four city’s and the priorities at the time.
John,
These dollar numbers are for the Burlington schools only, describing the relative Renewal costs.
You don’t need the chart for any other schools anywhere in the Board.
Any discrepancies have nothing to do with divisions between the four cities. They likely have their own estimates of needs for renewal, just like in Burlington.
This is pretty clear and I have to wonder how you have mischaracterized the chart and dollars.
You could have researched this to get support for your assumption about how dollars could have been distributed, but you did not.
It doesn’t fly.
Mr. Myers has nailed the data issue with the PAR process. Bad data, bad decisions. This is but one of many problems with the process that has been followed. The public will get some chances to hear and hopefully question this flawed process before the PARC completes its meetings and the Director presents his recommendation. Folks, please come out to these meetings and let the Board know your feelings.
It will be up to the Director to signal this study is so flawed that it should be halted. If he fails to do so, then it will fall to the Board to put on the brakes, if the Trustees have the courage and insight to do so.
The decision to close any high school in Burlington is too important to our future be left to this poorly executed exercise. Time for a reset, a big breath, then a restart with a new PAR treating every school with respect and fairness from the beginning.
I guess we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief for the fact that we are paying these bureaucrats six figures large every year to retain the awesome talent.
It would seem that faulty information being presented as sound data is not so. But let’s go ahead anyway.
STOP RIGHT NOW. Full Stop. Get your collective data together and then perhaps we can have a fair start? What say you?
Back in the day we had a phrase for workers to do their tasks reliably and it was; “do it or heads would roll.” Thank goodness there is no such talk like this nowadays.
Perhaps they need a pay raise or more days off to improve performance.
It’s pretty incredible to think that five years after Central had a big campaign and raised $100,000 in the community in 18 months to completely re-do the auditorium, and the Board gave $20,000 at the very end to get the school to the needed total of $120,000, that today nobody at the Board knows this happened. This includes the Superintendent of Facilities Gerry Cullen, who you would think would have heard of it, and Dom Renzella, the Planning Manager at the HDSB who was just in the auditorium at the beginning of this process in November presenting with Stuart Miller to the Central Community! And as Mr. Myers points out, how do they say that replacing the seats would cost $159,000? The entire auditorium cost $120,000, with more upgrades than only seats.
This all also begs the question that if the numbers relating to Central’s renewal costs are wrong, why would we assume the numbers for the other schools are correct?
There is no way anybody can trust ANY numbers or data the Board presents. Over and over again they are shown to be incorrect, and tainted.
If you do not believe you have accurate information, you need to halt the process.
No business would continue to make a recommendation based on flawed data or even possibly flawed data. As the output will be unsound. If this process is truly for the students, and they want to get it right, the board needs to stop. Review the information and provide a complete review for all options. If they continue strong arm the process, the output will be garbage (garbage in, garbage out).
I agree with Dave Myers regarding the Boards transparency and accountability.
The Boards goal is to stack the odds against Central. I don’t trust or believe anything that the Board says. Their attitude is let’s just drive this through as quickly as possible, ignore the students and pay lip service to the downtown community. By selling Central they get a quick fix for their long term financial mismanagement and incompetence.