Ontario’s largest cash-strapped school boards squandered $16.7-million in the last academic year by enabling retirees to pad their pensions with supply-teaching work rather than hiring new teachers, a Globe and Mail investigation has found.
Retired teachers working in 10 school boards, representing half the student population, collected $108.3-million in the 2008-09 school year from taxpayers on top of their government-subsidized pensions, taking advantage of a system rife with loopholes that leaves new teachers scrambling for crumbs.
The investigation revealed widespread overspending, with boards favouring retirees over new teachers for supply assignments at a higher pay scale that, in some cases, doubled the cost to the taxpayer. One retiree working in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board worked a total of 106 days in 2008-09, earning an estimated $47,000 on top of what is already one of the most generous pensions in the country.
Other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island, have reined in such largesse by stopping pension payments when a teacher takes a long-term supply assignment. But in Ontario, even as Premier Dalton McGuinty has been lambasting postsecondary institutions for loose spending, the policing system to make sure retirees aren’t milking the education budget relies on an honour system.
The issue has angered new teachers who can’t get work, and sparked ongoing discussions between the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the government – yet nothing has changed. Even the architect of the original policy that allowed retired teachers to work more supply days while collecting their pensions recognizes the time for it has come and gone.
Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky acknowledged the current policy poses challenges, particularly for new teachers, but added that retirees bring much-needed expertise to the job. She said parents have expressed concern that an inexperienced supply teacher doesn’t have the necessary skills to lead a classroom.
“I’m not going to debate your numbers other than to say sometimes behind the numbers there are very particular situations and circumstances that might require a board to consider engaging someone who is retired,” she said. “I think that both the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the province are aware that there are areas where we have challenges ... And we are working with the teachers’ federation to see how we can address those going forward.”
But those longing for change are tired of waiting while school boards overspend by millions of dollars each year.
“The system has been abused by some retirees,” said Malcolm Buchanan, a retired teacher in Hamilton and former general-secretary of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, who has been petitioning the province to change the rules. “A number of people are at fault here. School boards are at fault for hiring retirees in the first place. The second fault is they don’t monitor the number of days retirees work ... And [at fault are] individual members who take advantage of the rules.”
Principal Ron Crocco at Jean Vanier Catholic High School prefers to hire retired teachers.
The current system was designed two decades ago to address a teacher shortage. Prior to 1990, retired teachers were allowed to teach a maximum of 20 days a year before their pensions were affected. A change allowed for 95 days in the first three working years after retirement, and 20 days indefinitely thereafter. The shortage of the 1990s, however, has long evaporated – for every job, there are about two newly certified teachers graduating each year.
Chris Ward, the province's former minister of education who introduced the bill that led to that change, believes the policy is no longer needed and should be abandoned.
