Catholic school trustees: iPods, online gambling
p2pnet news view | Crime:- Toronto Catholic school trustees spent public money on iPods and online gambling, said an auditor’s report.
But they, “failed to answer for all of their expenses,” and now the Toronto police have been called in, says the National Post.
“Over the past five years, trustees claimed more than $10,000 that they should not have, including $918 by onPoste member who has yet to pay back the money he or she used to buy a gold ring, a sun lamp and a personalized licence plate, according to the Ernst & Young report, commissioned by the Ministry of Education,” says the story
“The rest of that money has been reimbursed, but there is another $19,434 that remains unexplained, and potentially inappropriate …”
The report breaks down expenses by each trustee, but no one is specifically named, says the Canadian Press, which has education minister Kathleen Wynne saying the point of the audit wasn’t to point fingers, “but to clean up unresolved issues”.
This, “really isn’t about shaming individual people,” the story has her saying, “it’s about the principle. We required and the public required to know what the size of the problem was and what we were going to do about it.”
The $250,000 audit, “comes 11 months after the Toronto Sun began reporting trustee expenses were used for everything from Caribbean vacations, booze and late-night meals,” says the Toronto Sun.
“It’s really distressing, the whole issue is distressing, that people didn’t see that there was abuse of the public purse going on,” Wynne said.
“The fact that we have to have this report is really disheartening, having said that it’s also instructive.”
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National Post - Trustees spent public cash on jewellery, iPods: auditor, November 14, 2008
Canadian Press - Audit details Catholic trustees’ expense sins, November 14, 2008
Toronto Sun - Audit results prompt education minister to call in the cops, November 14, 2008
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