Well, that didn’t take long. Just 48 hours after announcing a review, the Ministry of Education gave what amounts to an A- to the process that handed $16,000 in a sole-source contract to a teenaged girl who met the contractor while she DJ’d a wedding.

We broke this story: see our blog post about 115 pages of documents we obtained here, and a follow-up post on the 14 page report itself here.

Oh sure, the review makes a few minor changes to close some purchasing loopholes, but it does little to address the core issue of lack of value, and why this was sole-sourced.

The review notes that the first $8,000 went through Saanich School District because the contractor was underage. But Saanich could contract her? How does that work? This also conveniently (for Rick Davis) sidestepped any need for his boss to sign off on the transfer.

The second $8,000 did receive the e-mailed approval of the former deputy minister, James Gorman. Gorman left the Ministry shortly thereafter and is now CEO of the Council of Forest Initiatives. There’s probably a joke in there about not seeing the forest for the trees, but I don’t have the time nor patience for such frivolity at the moment.

Anyway, the review recommends changes to the purchasing policy to force deputy minister approval for contracts funneled through school districts; signatures, not e-mails for deputy minister approvals; and a one-hour procurement policy refresher course presented by the financial standards team.

Minister Peter Fassbender also released a statement, calling the contract “an unusual set of circumstances,” and then some motherhood and apple pie stuff about how wonderful the author was, how important teacher training is, and how vital it is to get student input into teacher practices. Yadda yadda yadda.

But he did acknowledge one important note:

“However, in this case, I believe the ministry could have pursued these important objectives in a more cost effective manner. It is a reminder that we must remain prudent with tax dollars as we continue our efforts to improve the education system.”

Uh, yeah.

Our Freedom of Information request for all documents and emails around this review will be filed by the close of business tonight.