Cleaning up TVDSB fiscal oversight won't be a quick fix, says education consultant

An education analyst with three decades of experience says an auditor's report into fiscal mismanagement at the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) has exposed deep-rooted problems that won't be easy to fix.

Debbie Kasman, a consultant who's worked as a student achievement officer at the Ministry of Education, spent much of the weekend reading the 142-page audit conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP. 

Here's some of what she had to say to CBC News about the report's findings into how London's largest public school manages its finances.

You can read more about the auditor's report in this story. 

Q. What was your initial reaction to the report?

"I was expecting a certain number of issues, but I was shocked at the level of detail that the report alluded to and at some of the details that were revealed. It's quite a doozie of a report. I'm still finding things in the report that I find shocking and egregious and fascinating and I think it's going to take us a while to digest the whole thing." 

Q. When you look at the report's findings, what stands out to you the most? 

"The one that jumps out to me the most is that on March 26, 2025, the school board notified the Ontario College of Teachers that [former board education director] Mark Fisher was found to have been the subject of a number of professional breaches. I was not expecting that. That's a pretty big deal because that alludes to professional misconduct according to the Ontario College of Teachers Act. Depending on what those misconduct allegations are, the consequences can be quite significant. That's $700,000 of taxpayers' money that went to salaries and shouldn't have. It's a lot of money for hardworking Ontarians."

Q. How do you think something like that could have happened? 

"We've got problems at the director level and the senior admin team level and we've got problems at the trustee level and problems at the chair of the board, we've got problems at all three levels."

Q. In your experience, how does something like this slip through the cracks?

"This has been an ongoing problem since about 1990. All three parties in Ontario have tried to tighten up accountability [over school boards] ... and unfortunately they have not been successful in doing that to the degree that is required in my opinion and that's now coming to light. We've reached a point where something drastic has to be done or these problems will continue." 

Q. Do you think the province's move to assign a supervisor for the board was the right move? 

"It is the correct move. When I look into some of the financial history and the growing debt over the past two or three years I would agree with the auditors that the trustees don't have the capability to get themselves out of the financial deficit that they're currently in without significant support."

Q. What are you going to be watching for going forward in this?

"I'm going to see if [other Ontario school boards being audited] have similar issues of non-compliance Thames Valley did. Particularly around pay raises to senior execs that were not compliant."