Thames Valley school board brass spent $40K on Blue Jays stadium hotel retreat

Administrators with the cash-strapped Thames Valley District school board spent nearly $40,000 on a three-day retreat at the Toronto Blue Jays stadium hotel amid a $7.6-million budget deficit that’s prompted deep cuts, including to funding for kids’ field trips.

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The exact cost, $38,444.92, was revealed Thursday by trustee Beth Mai, chair of the school board. It was three weeks ago that The Free Press uncovered details of the retreat, which sparked anger from union leaders, parents and taxpayers. The board’s top official, Mark Fisher, earlier this week started a paid leave of absence.

The bill includes transportation, hotel rooms, meeting spaces and food expenses, school board officials said in a statement Thursday.

“This has been a learning experience for the (school board) and will not happen again,” the statement read.

On social media, Mai broke down the nearly $40,000 bill in detail:

• Travel: $5,468.09
• Accommodations: $19,778.02
• Meeting rooms and meals: $13,198.81

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May made public the price tag amid calls for more transparency. Mai and her fellow trustees were not part of the retreat to the former SkyDome hotel, now known as the Marriott City Center Hotel. Fellow trustee Lori-Ann Pizzolato had urged making the cost public.

“It’s public dollars and the public should know how much was spent,” Pizzolato said earlier this week.

The Free Press reported that 18 board administrators attended a three-day retreat at the hotel inside Rogers Centre, the Toronto Blue Jays stadium, where hotel staff said rooms range from $374 to $1,199 a night. The retreat was held from Aug. 19 to Aug. 21, and the Jays were playing at home on all three dates.

One of Ontario’s largest boards, Thames Valley is facing a budget deficit of $7.6 million that’s already been whittled down by $11 million through cuts to jobs and school supplies. The board has also slashed by 50 per cent the money for student field trips, down to $500,000.

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The school board’s annual budget is $1.2 billion.

Fisher, the board’s top administrator since 2019, defended the trip in a prior interview, saying back-to-school retreats for board officials are industry-standard across Ontario. A board spokesperson later stated such retreats “will not continue in the future.”

After a series of closed-session meetings on Monday, Mai announced Fisher has taken a paid leave of absence from the position of education director. Thames Valley officials have not publicly detailed the circumstances surrounding Fisher’s leave. Associate director Andrew Canham filled in for Fisher at a committee meeting Tuesday.

The board’s former top boss, Bill Tucker, is replacing Fisher on an interim basis.

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The board hasn’t named the administrators at the retreat or whether any steps would be taken to recover the expense. The Thursday statement, signed jointly by Tucker and Mai, said they are “reviewing and making changes to expense policies and procedures.”

Union leaders who’d demanded transparency over the price tag spoke out after it was made public.

Craig Smith is president of the Thames Valley local of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. He noted that $38,000 is roughly enough to pay the annual salary of an early childhood educator.

“That’s a lot of public money,” he said. “I’m sure in hindsight that someone would have made a different decision. The positive piece moving forward is that the interim director (Tucker) has acknowledged that it is an issue and that it will never happen again.”

Mary Henry is president of CUPE Local 4222 that represents 1,600 board employees including custodians, secretaries and early childhood educators. Of the nearly $40,000 tab, she said: “That’s more money than some of our staff members make in a year. It’s shameful.”

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