Move aside, $16 orange juice. Here comes a $143 pencil sharpener!

[Common sense]

The high cost to perform tens of thousands of small jobs — hanging pictures, mounting bulletin boards and yes, more pencil sharpener installations — are costing the Toronto District School Board a small fortune, according to data obtained by the Star.

At one school, Emery Collegiate Institute in North York, a work crew was summoned to hang three pictures one day in March 2011, a job that took seven hours and cost $266. Eight days later, workers were once again called to the same school to “hang three pictures on the wall.” That time, workers billed for 24 hours at a cost to taxpayers of $857.

The 293,000 work orders covering a two-year period ending this fall represent $158 million in construction and maintenance jobs done for Toronto’s 600 elementary and secondary public schools.

Last week, the Star asked the school board to provide an explanation for some of the more glaring costs, including the work done at Emery Collegiate. The TDSB is preparing a response, which it estimates will be done in January.

Meanwhile, reacting to an audit and information earlier unearthed by the Star, the provincial education ministry has offered to assist the TDSB in fixing the problem. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report recommends closing schools and contracting out some jobs.

There is also a police investigation underway, looking at allegations of fraud involving some former TDSB workers.

The Toronto public school board is in a cash crunch. It estimates $3 billion of work needs to be done to bring its aging schools up to an acceptable level.

About 900 workers belonging to the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council carry out the work as part of a long-standing contract that is radically different from many other boards in Ontario, which contract out many jobs to the lowest bidders. Schools also have janitorial staff, which could do the smaller jobs that have been routinely assigned to the council workers.

Teachers have contacted the Star saying they would like to put up a shelf, a coat hook or attach a pencil sharpener but believe that they are not allowed to. “I was told flat out by my school that we are not allowed to do this work,” said one teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity because the teacher fears job repercussions for talking.

The data obtained by the Star is a mix of small jobs that appear to take too long, and big jobs that take many, many weeks. The data is raw — no conclusions are made in the data as to whether the job was done properly or on time.

When the Star first asked under the freedom of information law for the data, the school board wanted $3.6 million. When the Star pointed out that the electronic records could be extracted from their system with relative ease, the board relented and handed over the data at no cost.

Here’s a short tour of some jobs that caught our eye. The TDSB has not responded yet to questions about these charges.

• $147.88 to cut one key at the board’s “East Education office.”

• $167 for a job at R.H. McGregor Elementary School described as “four guys needed to move a bench.”

• $118 to install a pencil sharpener at Vaughan Road Academy (this is cheaper than the $143 sharpener installation the Star found earlier at another school).

• $190 to replace a broken toilet seat in the staff washroom at Kensington Community School. That price included the seat, which was $126.

• $312 to replace two malfunctioning smoke detectors at Highfield Junior School, plus $58 for new detectors. The data indicates this important work took seven days from when job was requested to completed.

• $810 to “remove unpleasant words on (washroom) stall” at Elkhorn Public School.

• $1,614 (representing 49 hours for a painter) to paint a vice-principal’s office at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Materials were $82, likely two cans of paint.

• $2,441 to install a whiteboard on the wall at Rouge Valley Public School, plus the $127 cost of the board.

• $2,670 to replace “burned-out bulbs in lunchroom” at H.J. Alexander Community School. That job took 70 hours, and the bulbs were an additional $337.

The data also includes big jobs, such as $21,592 labour (which works out to 745 hours) and $1,849 in materials to replace a broken water main at Hollycrest Middle School. The detail provided makes it impossible to tell if this cost is a fair one. In all cases, the Star has arrived at the number of work hours using the hourly union wage at the TDSB for each trade.

Here’s how work gets authorized: each TDSB janitor has a computer terminal in his or her office that is linked to the public school board’s work-order system. When a teacher or principal, or the janitor, decides something needs fixing or to be installed, the janitor is asked to create a work order. The janitor inputs the information into a computer terminal. At TDSB maintenance head office, a worker is assigned. Depending on the type of work, one of the 900 skilled tradespeople (electricians, carpenters, plumbers, general maintenance, etc.) with the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council is dispatched.

The trades council, run by Jimmy Hazel, said in a recent dispatch to trustees that it agrees on-site janitorial staff should be allowed to do some of the smaller jobs.

Meanwhile, at TDSB headquarters, managers are trying to construct a system that will allow them to monitor workers. One suggestion being tossed around is to install GPS systems on trucks. This was discussed after managers discovered some workers said they were at a job site and were actually at a Tim Hortons, a bar, delivering pamphlets for a paving job using TDSB equipment or, in one case, kissing a girlfriend in a school board van.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1298256--tdsb-s-143-school-pencil-sharpener-just-the-beginning

That's right...your (as in Torontonians') tax monies are going to this type of crap and red tape. Absolutely disgusted at the amount of bureaucracy needed to do something as simple as put in 4 screws.

[key2thecup]

Willing to bet its not only T-Dot dealing with this type of taxpayer waste

[LostViking]

A simple matter of no one pressuring them to save money. In fact, the biggest pressure would probably be to spend as much as possible. The more cash you spend, the bigger the budget you can ask for next year. If you end up saving money, your budget will shrink.

Now it makes sense to get these costs under control, but of course, once you threaten to take away the children's pencil sharpener you will have an army of parents calling for your head.

This is why I work in the corporate world, where it goes something like this:

Me: Lets stop wasting money

Business Owner: Great idea

[Heretic]

To be honest, I don't really see an issue other than a couple of trivial ones.

I work in IT, yet at my company, I'm not allowed to move my computer from one desk to another - has to be done by movers.

Why? Mainly because of insurance.

So yes, teachers shouldn't be moving benches, getting on ladders to replace light bulbs or smoke detectors, etc.

What do you thin it costs to have something done?

I had 150 feet of a farm fence just installed - pressure treated posts and 4 10 foot round pressure treated rails between each post.

Mainly done by one guy but the owner/operator helped a couple of the days.

Retail price would have been $3000. Gray market was $2000.

Yes...some of those costs needed to be audited....hanging a white board? 2 guys, maybe 2 hours tops - should have been no more than $300 plus the cost of the board. Maybe they did other "jobs" around the school - but that's what an audit should determine.

[D-Money]

I knew a prison guard once, who said when it got close to the end of fiscal, and they still had money in the budget, they were encouraged to basically destroy their office machines.

Why? The bass-ackwards government policy of basing budgets on what was previously spent.

Managed to save 5% of your budget this year? Congrats! Here's your reward: a permanent 5% decrease in your budget! Enjoy!

[canucks since 77]

Whatever happened to the custodians that did most of these maint. problems on salary?

[Down by the River]

Back when I was in elementary school, we would perform half of those jobs. Want a bench moved? Get up and move it. Hang some art? Get some tacks. Graffiti in the washroom? Make the culprit clean it off.

Both my parents are teachers. Have been for 30 years. They usually have a budget of ~$200 to make their classroom 'look nice'. If they wanted something extra, they did it themselves. Why? Because they care about their job, and when you truly care about something, you generally have good motivation to get things done on your own.

[key2thecup]

A simple matter of no one pressuring them to save money. In fact, the biggest pressure would probably be to spend as much as possible. The more cash you spend, the bigger the budget you can ask for next year. If you end up saving money, your budget will shrink.

[n00bxQb]

I knew a prison guard once, who said when it got close to the end of fiscal, and they still had money in the budget, they were encouraged to basically destroy their office machines.

Why? The bass-ackwards government policy of basing budgets on what was previously spent.

Managed to save 5% of your budget this year? Congrats! Here's your reward: a permanent 5% decrease in your budget! Enjoy!

[Lancaster]

To be honest, I don't really see an issue other than a couple of trivial ones.

I work in IT, yet at my company, I'm not allowed to move my computer from one desk to another - has to be done by movers.

Why? Mainly because of insurance.

So yes, teachers shouldn't be moving benches, getting on ladders to replace light bulbs or smoke detectors, etc.

What do you thin it costs to have something done?

I had 150 feet of a farm fence just installed - pressure treated posts and 4 10 foot round pressure treated rails between each post.

Mainly done by one guy but the owner/operator helped a couple of the days.

Retail price would have been $3000. Gray market was $2000.

Yes...some of those costs needed to be audited....hanging a white board? 2 guys, maybe 2 hours tops - should have been no more than $300 plus the cost of the board. Maybe they did other "jobs" around the school - but that's what an audit should determine.

[NightHawkSniper]

School unions are a pain.

[Common sense]

School unions are a pain.

[Mr. White]

Who needs to call someone to install a pencil sharpener? Could none of the teachers/janitors figure out how to screw in one screw?

[Pouria]

The high cost to perform tens of thousands of small jobs — hanging pictures, mounting bulletin boards and yes, more pencil sharpener installations — are costing the Toronto District School Board a small fortune, according to data obtained by the Star.

At one school, Emery Collegiate Institute in North York, a work crew was summoned to hang three pictures one day in March 2011, a job that took seven hours and cost $266. Eight days later, workers were once again called to the same school to “hang three pictures on the wall.” That time, workers billed for 24 hours at a cost to taxpayers of $857.

The 293,000 work orders covering a two-year period ending this fall represent $158 million in construction and maintenance jobs done for Toronto’s 600 elementary and secondary public schools.

Last week, the Star asked the school board to provide an explanation for some of the more glaring costs, including the work done at Emery Collegiate. The TDSB is preparing a response, which it estimates will be done in January.

Meanwhile, reacting to an audit and information earlier unearthed by the Star, the provincial education ministry has offered to assist the TDSB in fixing the problem. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report recommends closing schools and contracting out some jobs.

There is also a police investigation underway, looking at allegations of fraud involving some former TDSB workers.

The Toronto public school board is in a cash crunch. It estimates $3 billion of work needs to be done to bring its aging schools up to an acceptable level.

About 900 workers belonging to the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council carry out the work as part of a long-standing contract that is radically different from many other boards in Ontario, which contract out many jobs to the lowest bidders. Schools also have janitorial staff, which could do the smaller jobs that have been routinely assigned to the council workers.

Teachers have contacted the Star saying they would like to put up a shelf, a coat hook or attach a pencil sharpener but believe that they are not allowed to. “I was told flat out by my school that we are not allowed to do this work,” said one teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity because the teacher fears job repercussions for talking.

The data obtained by the Star is a mix of small jobs that appear to take too long, and big jobs that take many, many weeks. The data is raw — no conclusions are made in the data as to whether the job was done properly or on time.

When the Star first asked under the freedom of information law for the data, the school board wanted $3.6 million. When the Star pointed out that the electronic records could be extracted from their system with relative ease, the board relented and handed over the data at no cost.

Here’s a short tour of some jobs that caught our eye. The TDSB has not responded yet to questions about these charges.

• $147.88 to cut one key at the board’s “East Education office.”

• $167 for a job at R.H. McGregor Elementary School described as “four guys needed to move a bench.”

• $118 to install a pencil sharpener at Vaughan Road Academy (this is cheaper than the $143 sharpener installation the Star found earlier at another school).

• $190 to replace a broken toilet seat in the staff washroom at Kensington Community School. That price included the seat, which was $126.

• $312 to replace two malfunctioning smoke detectors at Highfield Junior School, plus $58 for new detectors. The data indicates this important work took seven days from when job was requested to completed.

• $810 to “remove unpleasant words on (washroom) stall” at Elkhorn Public School.

• $1,614 (representing 49 hours for a painter) to paint a vice-principal’s office at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Materials were $82, likely two cans of paint.

• $2,441 to install a whiteboard on the wall at Rouge Valley Public School, plus the $127 cost of the board.

• $2,670 to replace “burned-out bulbs in lunchroom” at H.J. Alexander Community School. That job took 70 hours, and the bulbs were an additional $337.

The data also includes big jobs, such as $21,592 labour (which works out to 745 hours) and $1,849 in materials to replace a broken water main at Hollycrest Middle School. The detail provided makes it impossible to tell if this cost is a fair one. In all cases, the Star has arrived at the number of work hours using the hourly union wage at the TDSB for each trade.

Here’s how work gets authorized: each TDSB janitor has a computer terminal in his or her office that is linked to the public school board’s work-order system. When a teacher or principal, or the janitor, decides something needs fixing or to be installed, the janitor is asked to create a work order. The janitor inputs the information into a computer terminal. At TDSB maintenance head office, a worker is assigned. Depending on the type of work, one of the 900 skilled tradespeople (electricians, carpenters, plumbers, general maintenance, etc.) with the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council is dispatched.

The trades council, run by Jimmy Hazel, said in a recent dispatch to trustees that it agrees on-site janitorial staff should be allowed to do some of the smaller jobs.

Meanwhile, at TDSB headquarters, managers are trying to construct a system that will allow them to monitor workers. One suggestion being tossed around is to install GPS systems on trucks. This was discussed after managers discovered some workers said they were at a job site and were actually at a Tim Hortons, a bar, delivering pamphlets for a paving job using TDSB equipment or, in one case, kissing a girlfriend in a school board van.

http://www.thestar.c...t-the-beginning

That's right...your (as in Torontonians') tax monies are going to this type of crap and red tape. Absolutely disgusted at the amount of bureaucracy needed to do something as simple as put in 4 screws.

[Pouria]

Who needs to call someone to install a pencil sharpener? Could none of the teachers/janitors figure out how to screw in one screw?

[Common sense]

I wish they would give that money to me to do the job. Painting an office which only takes 2 hours and I would get paid $1700 to do it. Wish I could become the worker for school district to do these things.

[Pouria]

At the very most, it would take 3 full days to paint one room - one to buy the paint and move furniture around, one for the first coat, and one for the second coat.

Assuming a wage of $35/hr for 21 hrs (7*3), that's in total about 735. Not sure how that number could be doubled...

[Captain Bob]

There was a $183 pencil sharpener on Groupons

[Common sense]

It took only 2 days for me to paint a 700 SQ. FT. suite which included moving some stuff and putting 2 coats. It would only take me a day to do a 100 SQ. FT. office. It doesn't take one day to get a paint. You can use paints that dry in 1 hour and apply another coat. 3 days to paint a small office is a bit ridiculous.