For the second year in a row Rocky View Schools (RVS) board of trustees has opted to cover the shortfall left after the Government of Alberta reduced lease payment funding for Prince of Peace Lutheran School in the Chestermere area.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Trustee Bev LePeare said as she made the motion to pay $66,813 from the Superintendent contingency budget to cover the shortfall from the government payment.
“We owe it to these students to continue on with the shortfall of the lease.”
In December 2012, the Government approved lease funding in the amount of $291,889 per year to lease the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church of Calgary building to house the RVS alternative program for five years.
According to RVS, on Aug. 6, 2013 the Division was notified the Government lease funding for the school would be reduced to $213,400. The lease funding reduction resulted in the Board approving $78,489 from the Superintendent contingency fund on Nov. 21, 2013 to cover the remainder of the lease payment for the year.
Trustee Norma Lang said they covered the lease payment last time on a one time only agreement because the church was given very little notice of the funding reduction.
“It’s the provincial government’s job to provide spaces for students, it’s our job to provide education in those spaces,” Lang said, calling the lease funding reduction “an inappropriate download of capital costs by government.”
“We either have to respond to this by setting up a reserve funds for government capital funding downloads, or we have to stick to our guns (and honour the one time only funding),” she added.
Trustee Todd Brand countered the term of one year only does not mean the commitment can only be for one year and than never again.
“This lease and the use of the facility is a good thing for RVS students,” he said.
He added, if they didn’t approve the additional funding, the lease could be terminated and 380 students would have to be relocated.
Trustee Sylvia Eggerer had earlier expressed a concern about the school’s population being 60 per cent from out-of-bounds areas, to which Brand said of the 380 students 145 are in RVS boundaries.
“If we didn’t have this facility we wouldn’t have space for those 145 (in-bounds) students,” he said.
“There is a real space shortage in Rocky View Schools felt most acutely in Cochrane, Chestermere and Airdrie.”
Eggerer expressed concern for the future of the school at that location because she said the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church of Calgary is facing debt restructuring.
“We have no assurances that (the building) is going to be there for the long term,” she said.
“We should be looking ahead to see what kind of alternatives we can put in place if the rug gets pulled from under out feet.”
“We supplement schools and their programs in every corner of this division,” LePeare said.
“This is another kind of supplementation.”
“If we get a pay cut we still have to pay our own mortgage,” she added.
“We owe this to our students, we owe this to our kids.”
The motion was approved with Lang, Eggerer and Trustee Fiona Gilbert opposed to the decision.
