Article content continued

School Boards’ Co-operative Inc. refused to release a copy of the report, saying it was up to individual school boards, but several boards contacted Tuesday did not return messages.

Premier Kathleen Wynne did not respond directly to the report Tuesday, instead talking about the money the government saved by ending the practice of banked sick days.

“In terms of the analysis of what that means and the funding, as I said, we can get you those numbers, but what I know is that the reason the change was made is that there were hundreds of millions of dollars being paid out in paid sick days and that was not a system that really anybody else had access to in the public or the private sector,” she said.

“So that change was made and now those sick days do not create a lump sum payment at the time of retirement.”

Education ministry staff were not able to provide the figures Wynne promised for more than seven hours, but ultimately said that there was a one-time savings of $1 billion when the changes to sick days were made.

A further $130 million was saved in the 2012-13 year, $231 million in 2013-14 and $264 million last year due to eliminating banked sick days as well as scaling back retirement gratuities, the ministry said.

Neither the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation nor the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario would comment.