The union that represents Ontario’s public high school teachers had more than $60 million in a reserve account at the end of 2014, suggesting it could have gone without a $1 million payment from the province after contract negotiations this year.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which represents 60,000 high school teachers, maintains a reserve account it calls a Member Protection Account. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, the union had $65.7 million in that account at the end of 2014.

At the end of 2013, the account had a balance of $60.4 million, with more than $52 million of that in cash or other liquid assets, according to the union’s 2014 annual report.

The Globe says the union used its Member Protection Account to cover expenses related to bargaining in 2014.

The provincial government also gave OSSTF a total of $1.6 million between 2008 and 2014 to cover costs of various rounds of bargaining during that period.

During the latest contract negotiation, the province pledged to give OSSTF an additional $1 million to cover the cost of bargaining in 2015.

In total, educational unions received $3.74 million in payments from the province to cover bargaining costs between 2008 and 2015.

Alessandra Fusco, a spokesperson for education minister Liz Sandals, said the ministry will require all educational unions to provide “an accounting and verification of their costs” before payments are made.

“As you may know, our government unanimously supported a motion to have an independent third party, the Auditor General, look into the costs associated with the negotiated agreements, which will be released in spring 2016.”

OSSTF spokesperson Lori Foote did not responded to a request for comment on Friday.