Alberta PC school construction program poorly planned, auditor finds

An ambitious plan to build and modernize 230 Alberta schools lacked the planning to justify the opening dates originally announced by the previous Progressive Conservative government, a report from Alberta's auditor general has found.

The report from Auditor General Merwan Saher, requested last fall by NDP Education Minister David Eggen, found the education or infrastructure ministries lacked adequate systems to plan, execute and report on the program.

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"Both departments were individually responsible for certain aspects of the program, but no one was responsible for the overall results, so information on project schedules, including completion dates, was not known," the report states.

"Internal reporting on project progress was lacking, and public reporting was consequently weak," the report adds.

Bureaucrats didn't pass on the information to ministers that the timelines were incorrect, the report found.The auditors could find no documents updating ministers on progress. 

The program was first announced in 2011 and rolled out in three phases until 2014. Former premier Alison Redford said during the 2012 provincial election that the PC government would build 50 new schools and renovate 70 over the subsequent four years.

Saher and his auditors looked at the second and third phases of the program. 

Eggen said he accepts the report's recommendations which include improving project planning, management, reporting and cashflow forecasting. 

"I think what is most clear with the auditor's report is that the previous government had made promises for schools based on political gain and without monies in place, and sometimes without even sites available for those schools," Eggen said. 

Since October, Eggen's department has worked with Ernst and Young and KPMG to ensure money is in place, and the departments are talking to each other.  

Eggen said 28 new builds and 20 school modernizations will be ready this fall.

PC interim leader Ric McIver was infrastructure minister from December 2013 until his government's defeat last year. 

He said he was disappointed the auditor general called out staff for not updating ministers on the construction progress. He said there was no attempt by the government at the time to deceive anyone. 

"I'm not sure you need to blame anybody," McIver said. "We had a very ambitious school-building project because there were kids all over Alberta that needed classrooms and we were working hard to provide those classrooms for them."

Wildrose MLA Jason Nixon had sharp words for the PCs.

"We're saying and have always said that you should not be going out and making announcements for political gain that are not reasonable and totally impossible," he said.  "Getting people's hopes up that they're going to get schools and other projects in their communities, while the whole time you know that that's not possible, that's completely inappropriate."