Random Access

This is the period of time between nomination and elections days in the mandate of a municipal council or school board that is often referred to as “lame duck.”
Critical decisions made in the dying days of any administration are subject to particular scrutiny because it’s clear to everyone that a new set of decision-makers will soon be in place. It is not a legal concern, because the outgoing council or board still has the same powers. It is a moral concern, however, and most bodies assiduously avoid the practice of taking on the really big questions in the shadow of the ballot box.
(This is also a handy excuse for incumbent politicians to give themselves a lot more time to campaign for re-election, as if they need it, but I’m sure that is pure coincidence.)
The 22 would-be trustees of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board are in the interesting position, perhaps for the first time ever in Ontario, of running for a lame duck seat.
At last night’s special meeting, trustees did as expected and declined to follow the directive of Education Minister Kathleen Wynne to balance their budget, which is more than $16 million in the red.
The inevitable result will see Wynne hold her nose and appoint a supervisor to make the cuts that Dufferin-Peel trustees couldn’t make six weeks before a municipal election.
The price trustees will pay is the loss of control of budget approval for their system — the most critical financial function left for trustees who have lost their taxing power and are stuck with griping at Queen’s Park as they implement the government’s new policy directives, often without the dollars to pay for them.
While the trustees may be lame ducks, there is one important decision that remains outstanding before the election: a little matter of their own honoraria.
Talk about your moral dilemma.
Not.
Trustees do deserve an increase from the paltry $5,000 they now earn, but now is not the time to accept it, even though it will mean another four-year term with no raise.
It would be the height of hypocrisy for trustees, who are trying to pinch every penny to maintain school programs, to vote themselves a raise just before they take office to essentially sit on their duffs for at least two years while a provincial advisor balances the books and runs the system the trustees have just voluntarily agreed to cede to Ontario.