TORONTO

You have to spend money to save money — that’s the defence used by Education Minister Liz Sandals to justify an unexpected $300-million increase in the cost of teachers’ contracts.

The funds will be used to consolidate about 1,000 existing benefit plans into just five large ones, she said.

The government will at some point recoup the upfront consolidation costs and more, she added

“When you have very few people participating in a plan, the premium cost is much, much higher because of the risk calculations,” Sandals said Wednesday. “When you have a bigger pool, the benefit costs go down and you can buy a whole lot more for the same price.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod said the government assured the public that the recent teacher contract talks would not increase overall compensation, but the minister’s math doesn’t add up to the promised “net zero.”

“Not only have they not met the net zero, but it was $300 million more than expected,” MacLeod said.

She predicted the true cost of the teacher contracts will be even higher than publicly acknowledged by the Ontario government.

“The audacity of the minister today to claim that it is still a net zero when we know $300 million went into these secret payouts and to benefit plans rather than into kids and the classroom,” MacLeod said.

Teachers and education workers received $402 million worth of wage increases — a 1% one-time lump-sum payment in 2015-16, a 1% wage increase on Sept. 1 2016-17, followed by a mid-year 0.5% wage increase.

The pay hikes were offset by other savings including reduced sick leave costs and “unused funding” for secondary programming and elementary professional development, the government says.

There are no added benefits to teachers due to the plan consolidation, Sandals said.

Another eyebrow-raising feature of the negotiations was the government’s decision to provide a total of $2.5 million to three unions to help defray the cost of bargaining.

An audited statement by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation released Wednesday summed up its bargaining expenses as $391,110 on accommodation, $141,075 on food, $109,393 on meeting rooms, $271,168 on travel, and other items bringing the total to $1.02 million. Statements have yet to be released by AEFO and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association.

aartuso@postmedia.com