New cabinet minister supported CBE plan for $111M headquarters

Another new appointee to Premier Jim Prentices cabinet supported a CBE plan seven years ago to build a new administrative headquarters despite a mounting $547 million backlog of repairs at student facilities.

Minutes from a 2007 meeting of the Calgary Board of Education show Kyle Fawcett, who was then a trustee with the citys public school board, voted to proceed with the then $111-million project even though the price tag had tripled from $34 million in the three years since he had been elected.

Meeting records show Fawcett, the boards audit committee chair, was also at the table six months earlier when trustees gave the go ahead to a complex land sale and building lease with a private developer for the office tower because the CBE had decided it didnt have the money to finance construction itself.

A member of the Fiscal Four group of Tory MLAs who championed tighter spending after he left the CBE and won a seat in the 2008 provincial election, Fawcett declined to be interviewed about the headquarters deal.

I did not vote on the final project, Fawcett said in an emailed statement.

And since I was no longer a trustee when that agreement was approved, it would not be fair nor appropriate for me to provide further comment.

Freshly-appointed education minister Gordon Dirks, who was a trustee when the final approval was granted in February 2008, has also declined to speak with reporters about the deal.

Leaked documents show Dirks made the motion to proceed despite the fact the construction price for the tower and adjoining office had spiked another 45 per cent in less than a year to $161 million.

A secret report showed the CBE would be on the hook to pay $285 million in rent over the two-decade term of the lease, but board administrators had no clear plan for how to cover the cost.

A potential source of cash to cover rent that would increase two per cent annually in each of the 20 years included money then being used to maintain and operate schools, which bureaucrats suggested they could redirect.

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New cabinet minister supported CBE plan for $111M headquarters