Portland Motor Works

6 Government Law And Politics In 2002 The Government Of Ontario Stripped All Power And Authority From The School Board Trustees Because They Failed To Balance The Board's Budget Paul Christie Was Appointed By The Province To Serve As Supervisor Of The Toronto District School Board With Authority For All Financial And Administrative Functions Of The Board This Allowed Christie To Supersede The Authority Of Elected School Trustees The Provincial Government Argued That The Appointment Was Necessary As The TDSB Had Not Submitted A Budget To The Ontario Minister Of Education As Legally Required Representatives Of The TDSB Claimed That They Could Not Find The Necessary Operating Expenses For The Year Given Provincial Regulations Which Prohibited Deficit Spending Christie Balanced The TDSB's Budget Through A Dramatic Spending Reduction Of $90 Million Under His Watch The TDSB Eliminated Many Secretarial Positions Phased Out School-community Advisors Child And Youth Counsellors And Attendance Counsellors And Reduced The Number Of Vice-principals Cut Outdoor Education And Adult Education And Re-evaluated The Position Of Social Workers In The System Christie's Staff Reports Were Not Made Public And Some Critics Argued That There Were No Adequate Checks Or Balances On His Authority Blackstone Partners Carried Out A Review In 2006. They Submitted A 113-page Report In January 2007. Blackstone Partners Were "asked To Determine If The Facilities Division Had "effective Governance."" The Report Showed "high Costs Of Repairs Lots Of Workers And Spotty Results And Managerial �silos� That Made It Hard For Principals To Figure Out Whom To Approach To Get A Job Done." Blackstone Partners Gave 43 Recommendations In The Report The School Board Claims A Few Have Been Carried Out And Others Are In The Works. When Surveyed About A Wide Range Of Topics The Worst Result Was The School Board�s Maintenance And Construction Division. Eighty Percent Of Principals Didn't Believe The Maintenance And Construction Division Delivered Good Value For The Money TDSB Director Chris Spence "To Use A Football Analogy We Are Trying To Move The Yardstick There Is No Quick Fix." The Toronto Star Reported That In Recent Investigation Showed Little Has Changed Since That Review A Secondary School Principal "raised Questions About The $143 Cost Of Installing A Pencil Sharpener And The $19,000 Cost Of Installing A Sign On The School's Front Lawn."