Quote:
Originally Posted by IliketoPuck
The CBE scored well in procurement and maintenance, to their credit. I would suggest that is indicative of good work done by certain departments, and not necessarily reflective of leadership from the Trustee level.
The gap in governance led directly to the reserve fund of 0.7%, which then led to 300 layoffs, 300 re-hiring, and dipping into funds set aside for maintenance purposes (one of the two areas they are actually competent at). The emotional roller coaster on employees who one week are told they have a job, and then they don't, and then they have it back again.....there were real, human, consequences to the CBE's mismanagement.
To me that says financial ineptitude, a lack of planning, and a desire to score political points by painting the UPC as the bad guys. When in comparison, the other boards in the province were not caught unawares to the same extent that the CBE was.
The lack of governance and controls also led to the building decision being allowed to happen in the first place. This has been a problem for a really long time. And yes, it is easy to tell them to sublet space. But the fact that they only contemplated a binary option (buy or sell) is indicative again of the weak financial governance in place.
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I forgot to comment about the lack of financial acumen actually, and that's honestly deplorable.
The lack of a reserve is a rough one though. The province undoubtedly knew they had no reserves, and that they were not allowed to touch the maintenance reserves for these purposes. So, they had no real option but to suggest that they cut positions in November...and the province had to have known that? So, the CBE went down the only possible path at that time and issued the layoff notices. The province was mad (which is really why this audit was conducted), and suddenly allowed them to use the maintenance reserves...the CBE follows suit and keeps the staff with the reserves, and they get tarred for that now. At that point, it's evidently a no-win situation.
And as far as how they got into the position of having no reserves, that would take some research. But for an organization that relies entirely on the provincial government for funding to have an audit and one of the main suggestions is "they should have a reserve fund" is a little bit weird. To me, that's not exactly news. I don't know if they've arrived there due to mismanagement or due to lack of funding where they spent the reserves to keep things rolling or a combination of the two?