TDSB is spending $700,000 to fix a security breach it created all by itself

In the bitterly ironic world of Toronto District School Board politics, even a newspaper investigation into wasteful spending can, itself, lead to more wasteful spending. Case in point: according to the Globe, the district is currently spending an estimated $700,000 to change locks in about 140 schools. This is happening because school board officials accidentally divulged the locks’ pin settings to reporters at the Globe and the Star in response to freedom-of-information requests. The two newspapers were compiling evidence of TDSB’s tendency to overspend on simple maintenance tasks—like, for instance, changing locks. The Star built a cool interactive feature around the data, though, so at least Toronto’s taxpaying news junkies got that for their money. The pin settings, which the Star initially published with the rest of its haul, have since been removed from its website.