Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Published Friday, December 19, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - After months of speculation over the merger of 70 regional boards into seven superboards, the concept put forth by Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger will start to take shape early in the new year.

In an interview on Monday, Miltenberger said the refocusing committee studying the merger is preparing to present to affected parties the work it has done on key pieces of the reform plan in early January.

"We're going to be laying out the work we have done and our thinking on a number of the issues and laying out the issues left to be worked on," he said. "We're going to look at the basic things like the regional structure, the proposed shape of the boards and the accountability issues. How will cabinet be structured to provide the oversight, the role of the committee that is going to be structured under the board chairs and the ministers and the community structures that could be there to provide input into the regional board."

The merger will likely require cuts to staff, said Miltenberger, and money freed up will not be moved to other programs.

"There will be no diminishment to the resources available to schools in Yellowknife," he said.

The refocusing committee is looking into restructuring administration and financial systems. Miltenberger said the triplication, fragmentation and disconnect of policies has made the current system inefficient and costly. The committee has planned to establish one financial system instead of three to administer around $700 million spent in education, health and housing.

One of the key points, he said, "is to thin out the number of boards and rationalize the finances so that we have one system that can service the three areas. Seventy boards is too much for 33 communities and the population we have."

School board chairs and superintendents from across the territory conferred with the finance minister last Thursday morning. Miltenberger announced the committee will be setting up a consultation process early in the new year, likely to start in January. Yk Education District No. 1 chair Duff Spence said it was unclear as to what the process was going to be.

"Fundamentally our concern is the success of our kids," he said. "This reform seems a bit rushed and autocratic.

"For us it didn't answer anything or give us any peace of mind in terms of this process and the participation in this process."

Catholic school board chair Mary Vane said she hopes the consultation process will be taken seriously.

"It is my hope that we see a true consultation process occur," she said. "I have not been pleased so far with the process and there was very little new information given to us.

"We'll wait and see."

Miltenberger said Yellowknife is different from the other regions and it will take more time to reach an end goal. Spence agreed, and said the length of the merger process is cause for concern.

"We believe that when we are in a state of limbo and the government structures aren't formalized, we're going to end up spending more time on board reform than on the education of our kids," he said.

Yellowknife residents pay a school tax to the city to help maintain the quality of education available to students here. These taxes cover approximately 20 per cent of the money needed to run education in the city, with the other 80 per cent coming from the GNWT. Former Education, Culture and Employment minister Charles Dent said if the GNWT was to force Yellowknife's elected boards into this regional process, then all education funding should come from the GNWT, as is the case in other regions of the territory.

"In Yellowknife we're raising a significant portion of the cost of education," Dent said. "If we're going to be making the change where we are going to be treated the same as all other regions then we would have to get a 100 per cent funding here and our taxes should go down."

Miltenberger said the committee is looking into this issue and hopes to have answers soon. The option of appointed versus elected boards is also being reviewed. Dent said he believes appointed boards serve the wrong people.

"I've always been a big fan of elected boards over appointed," he said. "I think that's the best way you have accountability to the stakeholders. My concern is appointed boards allow the minister to step back and use the board as a shield when that may not be appropriate."