B.C government ordered to pay former teachers’ college manager 312K: judge

VANCOUVER – A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered the provincial government to pay $312,000 in severance and other benefits to a former employee of the now defunct teachers’ college.

Sixty-year-old Beverley Maxwell started working for the B.C. College of Teachers in 1996 and rose to the position of director of certification where she was responsible for a staff of 16.

She declined a job offer with the agency that replaced the college, the Teacher Regulation Branch, over concerns of reduced pay, vacation and severance and took the province to court over her dismissal.

Justice Ronald Skolrood has ruled Maxwell’s employment ended because the college was dissolved under a provincial law and she is entitled to severance in accordance to her contract.

Skolrood has ordered the government to pay Maxwell $271,000 in severance, $5,824 in benefits and $35,720 in pension-plan contributions.

He declined to rule on whether Maxwell’s decision to turn down work with the new agency was unreasonable.