Toronto District School Board
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Progress Update

As part of the TDSB’s ongoing commitment to greater accountability and sound fiscal management, the board regularly updates reports related to progress made in a number of different areas, including audits. Most recently, the TDSB has provided a progress update with regards to the PwC Audit conducted in 2012.


Progress on PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit Recommendations
(Audit Report Dated November 27, 2012)

Area of Concentration

number

Recommendation

Progress to Date as of June 2019

Capital

#1

Capital management re-organization - the Director should abolish the practice of shared or dual reporting structures. 

Completed. Staff roles within Planning and Facility Services have been delineated and reporting structures clarified.Recommendation continues to be supported.

#2

Rationalize property portfolio - the Board should proceed quickly to rationalize its portfolio of low utilization school properties.

Ongoing. TLC has sold 70 properties and has an additional 4 properties currently for sale.Currently the Ministry has announced a moratorium on school closures from the Pupil Accommodation Review Committee.

#3

Build new construction to benchmark - TDSB should build new construction to comparable industry construction cost benchmarks.

Completed. Business cases submitted to Ministry of Education are built to benchmark where possible

#4

Establish capital planning process - the school board should formally establish a new capital planning process that begins with identification and approval of planning and budget requirements.

Completed. The Board has established a new multi-year plan, and a 10-year Long Term Pupil Accommodation Strategy (LTPAS) that is updated annually, and 3- year capital budget plan that is updated annually.Both the LTPAS and capital budget are presented and approved at Board annually.

#5

Update capital deficit recovery plan - the school board should review the key assumptions made concerning its ability to generate revenues to support its capital plan. 

Completed. The Board no longer has a capital deficit.

#6

Business case for modular construction for smaller scale projects - TDSB should complete a formal business case on using modular construction methods in order to objectively assess the benefits and potential compromises involved.

Modular construction has been implemented where feasible (such as FDK construction projects).

Facilities

#1

Realign the maintenance and custodial staffing models - restructure and reduce the number of full time equivalent positions in these functions.

Completed. Facility Services has reduced the number of full-time equivalent positions in these functions and continues to review options to increase efficiencies within the guidelines of collective agreements.

#2

Facilities services re-organization - implement an organizational restructuring of the custodial, maintenance, and permits functions.

Completed. Facility Services has restructured the custodial and maintenance functions with a focus on functional alignment including the addition of a Permits Team Leader.

#3

Maintenance & custodial function transformation - including process re-engineering and technology implementation. 

Completed. Facility Services has responded to these recommendations in a number of ways.Phase one was the introduction of the GPS system, which is completed.Phase two involves the implementation of a handheld device to allow trades staff to receive work orders remotely, add time and close them from the device.This has now been rolled out to all trades staff.In addition, caretaking processes were reviewed and many of the former paper processes were put online, including school inspections and log books.Caretaking staff were issued with phones that will improve access for school staff, allow them to upload images of equipment and ultimately allow them to enter time/absence requests.

#4

Facilities services performance management program - implement a Performance Management framework within the Facility Services Organization.

Facilities Services will be developing and piloting a performance management program for unionized staff in the MCSTC and CUPE Unit D.This program will begin in the Fall of 2019.

#5

Outsource and decommission non-core services and functions. Outsource the following services: Security Services, Grounds, Vehicle Maintenance, Print Shop and Construction Services. Decommission the Electronics Repair Shop and the Distribution Centre.

Ongoing. The decommissioning of the Electronics Shop has been completed. The McGriskin Road location of the distribution centre has been decommissioned.Each of these areas are covered under Collective Agreements of the MCSTC or CUPE.It is not possible to unilaterally change the staffing levels in these areas due to Provincial agreements that provide for a protected complement of staff at this time.

Human Resources

#1

Attendance support - design and implement a comprehensive attendance support program for all staff groups with the aim of reducing the average paid-days lost per employee by 1 day by FY 2013/14.

The creation of a Disability Case Management Program began with the hiring of staff in the 2016-2017 year. Procedures and protocol for managing safe and timely returns to work from long term absences have been created. Last year was the first full year that the team was in place and procedures were operational. Early indicators show that the number of staff on long term absence and the duration of long term absences have started to decrease. Central agreements have impacted the ability of school boards to manage sick days.

#2

Increase staff allocation holdbacks - increase level of staff allocation holdbacks to minimize the risk of having more staff than needed.

Completed and implemented as of 2013-14.

#3

Strengthen enrolment verification controls - implement stricter controls over the use of the Enrolment Verification Application to ensure teacher allocations are as accurate as possible.

Completed.A report was brought forward in June 2014 to the Staff Allocation Committee and Administrative Council indicating that the EVA was being used correctly with no misallocation of staff.

#4

Strengthen staffing verification controls - implement stricter controls over the number of staff in the payroll system and ensure that key staffing-related data (i.e. number of active staff on payroll) is readily available for verification and planning purposes.

Completed.Spinifex was implemented in 2015.Reports run in this system by both Employee Services and Payroll will produce the same data.

Finance

#1

Enhance budget planning coordination - the Finance department should enhance and build on the positive aspects of the budget planning process.

Completed. The TDSB annually presents a planning schedule to the Finance, Budget and Enrolment committee (FBEC) that outlines timelines for information, reports and decision making for the committee for consideration.All committee information is published on the public website.

#2

Formal budget risk plan - the Finance department should enhance the budget risk management plan by reassessing the assumptions.

Completed. Staff, as part of the annual budget process, outlines major risk element and their financial impact to the budget to the FBEC committee.

#3

Interim financial reporting controls - the Finance department should review the process used to submit and review interim financial reports.

Completed.The Finance, Budget & Enrolment Committee reviews quarterly budget reports.

#4

Strengthen and realign payroll operations - strengthen accountability and oversight for Payroll Operations, including realigning Payroll Operations to report to and be accountable to Finance, so that more financial oversight can be provided for the TDSB's largest expenditure item.

Completed.Payroll department has been re-aligned to report to Business Services.

Central Administration

#1

Executive leadership for implementing the transformation program - design and implement a new senior leadership organizational structure, covering both operations and academic.

Completed.A new organization structure was proposed to promote cross functional work processes.

#2

Administrative process modernization – TDSB should conduct a board-wide business process re-engineering initiative to identify and eliminate process inefficiencies.

Completed.The Board has engaged in many new modernization initiatives since 2015.Examples include:KEV School Cash Online system, optical scanning solution for invoices, online public tendering process, VOIP phones, myInfo for pay statement and attendance tracking, mobile PO release process, etc.

#3

Reduce board-sponsored partnerships – TDSB should review all financial and in-kind contributions with a view of reducing expenditures in this area by 50%.

Completed: The Board has approved the Educational Programming Partnership policy (P.024) and procedure (PR667) which outlines the partnership approval process and parameters.  Staff approves the partnership vendors based on criteria that focus on student achievement and fiscal accountability. As part of the governance process all partnerships costing more than $50,000 will be presented to the Board for approval as per TDSB policy.  As the report has highlighted, partnerships were historically tracked in multiple ways and places across the Board; many were noted as ‘informal’ and others had documentation. Therefore, the financial information associated with Educational Partnerships at the time of the report was based on the limited number of files documented in the former Partnership Development Office, and the budget cap as a dollar figure may not be achievable in light of the actual numbers of partnerships operating across the Board that are now tracked through the Educational Partnership Office via a central gateway for all initiatives.

Procurement

#1

Procurement cost reduction program – implement a comprehensive Procurement Cost Reduction Program that covers 19 major procurement categories and is implemented over three waves of 8 months each.

Ongoing. The Distribution Centre has continued to expand its availability of commonly used trades supplies to increase time on the worksite versus buying materials. Many of the key cost reduction categories identified are areas where collaborative opportunities have been leveraged where they were advantageous (e.g. Office Supplies, Caretaking Supplies, IT Hardware).The Board works with Ontario Education Collaborative Marketplace (OECM) and other consortiums to capitalize on purchasing opportunities that represent best pricing.These collaborative purchasing opportunities represent approximately 23% to 25% of TDSB purchases annually.