Greater Toronto Catholic Parent Network

Kristin Rushowy

Toronto's Catholic trustees will pay back every penny of the almost $30,000 in questionable or ineligible expenses cited in a damning forensic audit, Ontario's education minister said yesterday after turning the report over to Toronto police.

Once police have wrapped up their investigation, "any unpaid amounts we are going to recoup through a reduction in trustee honoraria," Wynne said.

Three per cent of total spending since late 2003 was deemed questionable by auditors. While most trustees have already repaid about $10,000 of ineligible expenses, almost $20,000 in "potentially ineligible" expenses are outstanding. Such expenses did not have sufficient documentation, if any.

Although not named in the report, the Star was able to match trustees by their expenses, which are posted online. Mary Cicogna, Joseph Martino and Sal Piccininni racked up a total of $4,244 in expenses they weren't entitled to, and another $18,857 in "potentially ineligible" expenses.

Both Martino and Piccininni have repaid their ineligible expenses in full, but Piccininni's "potentially ineligible" expenses remain the highest at $13,804 – the bulk of that for three invoices for sports equipment and clothing from a company that has the same address as his constituency assistant.

Martino paid back all of $1,783 he received for ineligible expenses, including tax software, dry cleaning, shoe repair and car washes, and said he would be prepared to repay what he believes is $330 more in Highway 407 tolls and several meals outside Toronto. But he said he does not owe $2,113 in "potentially ineligible" fees and that the chart in the report might be misleading.

"If the minister feels we should pay back those questionable items, well, that's fine," he said in an interview last night. "Why spend more time and energy on this? She should just take it from our honorarium if that's what she believes and we can carry on to the point where people are satisfied all trustees have paid everything back."

Piccininni did not return calls yesterday but last week told the Star he had already repaid "clerical-error kind of stuff."

Cicogna has repaid $373 for charging taxpayers for Internet gaming, luggage and a car wash as well as duplicate claims, but refused the remaining $918 for a gold school-board ring, sun lamp and personalized licence plates because she "disagrees with our assessment of the expenses," the report, by auditors Ernst and Young, states.

However, she told the Star last night in an email that she had informed the auditor and director of education that she would return the items in question. "Unfortunately, it does not specify that in the auditor's report," she wrote.

Board Chair Catherine LeBlanc-Miller, who repaid $775 and apologized for the "negative impact" this has had on the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said she was pleased the report "concludes that 97 per cent of the expenses under review were eligible."

In September, stricter spending guidelines were implemented, with invoices going directly to the director of education – guidelines that will save the Catholic board several hundred thousand dollars a year.

"I'm embarrassed for our Catholic ratepayers who had to go through all of this," Trustee Barbara Poplawski said last night. "But at this point we have a wonderful new policy in place – clear and transparent, probably the best in the province – that will ensure this won't happen again."

Trustee Maria Rizzo said this will allow the board to move on and focus on educating its students.

Wynne ordered the forensic audit after Norbert Hartmann, who has since been sent in to take financial control of the board from trustees, found the 12 trustees to be among the biggest spenders in the province with many duplicate billings.

Allegations of misspending by former trustee Christine Nunziata – she charged taxpayers for lingerie and Dairy Queen treats – set off the chain of events last January. She was later removed from the board for missing too many meetings, and could not be included in the audit.

Progressive Conservative MPP Joyce Savoline (Burlington) complained the audit was "incomplete" due to the omission. "To have done the report without including Christine Nunziata is ludicrous, whether she was a trustee or not when they were doing the report," she said.

"Parents aren't going to buy this," added Murielle Boudreau of the Greater Toronto Catholic Parent Network. "They're already so angered now ... The only silver lining is that it's been sent to police."

Ernst and Young auditors spent months poring over 5,000 documents, and interviewing trustees and staff about a total of $943,784 in trustee expense claims from December 2003 to May of this year.

Wynne said individuals weren't named because "it's not about shaming trustees."

Former board chair Oliver Carroll said although he believes Wynne had little choice but to turn the report over to police "just to be sure," he would "find it hard to believe any trustee would have set out to deliberately defraud the public."

Toronto police, contacted by the Star, declined to comment on the report or potential charges.

Carroll had come under fire for billing half the $14,000 tuition for a master's degree in education administration. But yesterday's audit did not find that this violated the board's rules at the time, although the new policy wouldn't allow it.

Wynne called the episode "a cautionary tale" for school boards. "We're not going to tolerate anything that undermines confidence in the public education system."

With files from Louise Brown, Robert Benzie and Raveena Aulakh