TORONTO — The Ontario government should run the country's largest public school board directly given that its misguided and dysfunctional board of trustees has refused to take steps to balance the books, an auditor concluded Tuesday.

It is the third time this month an investigator has recommended the province take over a large urban school board from elected trustees. "The trustees, as a group, have demonstrated a clear reluctance to accept necessary structural changes, such as necessary school closures," said Al Rosen, the forensic accountant who examined the Toronto board's books.

"(They) have simply ignored the government's concept of having education quality across the province."

The Toronto District School Board was projecting a $90-million deficit for the coming school year but Rosen concludes that it could run as high as $140 million.

Ontario law has long banned school boards from running deficits. Some trustees are ignoring the rule, saying they receive too little money from the province to run schools and pay teachers.

In a hard-hitting report, Rosen slams the trustees, who earn an annual stipend of $5,000 to manage the $2 billion-a-year system, for setting misguided priorities that have little to do with improving education.

"To some trustees, virtually every societal issue is thought to have education roots," said Rosen, who castigated the board as dysfunctional.

"Some (Toronto) trustees do not agree that they have broad responsibilities to Ontario's taxpayers."

Since 1998, the board has received $912 million in transition funding but three-quarters of that money apparently never found its way into the city's classrooms, the report finds.

"We have serious concerns that a disproportionate share of available funding dollars have been, and are being, diverted away from classrooms."

Rosen also blames board staff for consistently failing to identify and recommend cost-saving measures.

As a result, the financial crisis "should have been easy to predict two or more years ago."

Board chairwoman Donna Cansfield said the problem rests with the province's education funding formula, which is currently under review, along with confusion over the definition of classroom spending.

"It comes down to defining the uses of those dollars," Cansfield said in an interview.

For example, she said, school secretaries are needed but may not be considered direct classroom support.

Besides pushing for closing 12 schools and cutting teaching and support staff, Rosen also recommends slashing the number of computers for students, closing swimming pools and charging to park on school property.

Cansfield rejected the suggestion the board is being wilfully obdurate by refusing to make the cuts.

"It's not just the board who might be out of step or out of sync, but it also may be the communities themselves with what the government considers a provincial benchmark."

Education Minister Elizabeth Witmer, who was not available to comment, was to sit down with the trustees to review the report on Wednesday.

On Monday, investigator Charles Smedmor called on the province to take over the Hamilton-Wentworth Public School Board because its trustees failed to close schools in order to balance the books.

Witmer has not said if she will do what Smedmor recommends.

But she did say Tuesday that she has asked Merv Beckstead to oversee the finances of the Ottawa-Carleton board after Rosen's scathing report on its financial management.

Beckstead, a veteran municipal bureaucrat, will have until Nov. 25 to prepare and implement a plan to return the board to a balanced financial position.

Witmer has all but ruled out closing any schools before September 2003.

Her decision to take over the Ottawa board came after it submitted a budget with a projected deficit of $23 million.

Trustees called Witmer's decision to remove control from them an assault on democracy.

Critics argue that woefully inadequate government funding is at the root of the financial crises facing the three boards.

"One of the saddest things is that trustees are elected but are powerless," said New Democrat Rosario Marchese.

"The province has been hiding behind trustees for many years under this government ever since they took the power away from boards to be able to levy a tax on property."