The dispute between the Provincial Auditor and the South East Cornerstone Public School Division's trustees has ended. The school board has agreed to submit some student files to the auditor's office, but only after names and certain sensitive items have been redacted by the school division's staff under administration's guidance.
The impasse that existed for a couple of weeks was finally settled on June 23, with a conference call with Acting Provincial Auditor Judy Ferguson, Cornerstone's chairman Harold Laich and other administrative staff.
"We also had a strategic planning meeting with Education Minister Don Morgan earlier," said Laich, who had noted on June 19, before the board's regular business session, he hoped they could find some common ground for a procedure that would allow the auditor's office to gain access to the files and information they wanted.
On June 23, after the conference call, Laich said that common ground was found when Ferguson suggested her office would only require about 60 student files from random locations that would let them verify whether Cornerstone was meeting requirements with regards to bullying, other student behaviour issues and attendance records.
"This type of audit doesn't focus on finances, it's about compliance with anti-bullying programs, attendance and processes," said Laich. "If we had been given the number of files she wanted right at the start, we might have been able to avoid this whole thing. Our staff will be able to redact (black out) the names and sensitive items in 60 files. If they had wanted several hundred, well, we wouldn't have been able to do that and student confidentiality could have been compromised and we wouldn't let that happen."
Laich said Cornerstone was the only school division in Saskatchewan that was asked to submit this type of information for this specific style of audit.
"We asked for a letter from the provincial Justice Ministry absolving us of any responsibility if something went wrong when we complied with this request. We left that issue in Morgan's hands," said Laich, referring to the education minister.
In the meantime, when the original request to submit student files to the auditor was denied, Ferguson filed a report to the provincial legislative assembly, noting her concerns regarding the refusal to have her office gain access to the student information.
In an earlier interview, Ferguson stated she was "puzzled" by the Cornerstone reaction to the request, and noted that it was the first time liability factors had been raised regarding the auditor's office since protections were in place "to protect both parties."
"We can now give them what they require, and it won't be full access," said Laich.
"(Ferguson's office) gave us enough information about what they need to have to do their compliance audit. I believe we will be giving them what they want this fall, once the new school year begins and all our staff members are back and can carry out the redactions and work with the auditor's staff. I expect they'll be able to do it within the first two months."
