The Board of Trustees of Rocky View Schools (RVS) voted in favour of staff’s recommendation to increase busing fees for most students by $10 per year at its May 19 regular meeting.
RVS Superintendent of Business and Operations Darrell Couture said the increase was necessary for a number of reasons, including the introduction of a carbon levy by the Provincial government announced in the budget brought down April 14.
“The carbon tax will be $140,000 in 2016/2017 but that will increase to $352,000 two years after that. It’s a fairly significant increase,” Couture said. “The cost of diesel fuel is an unknown. We estimate our diesel fuel savings will be $367,000 because diesel fuel is lower today than it was when we did the year before’s budget. But it’s not known in the future (what diesel fuel will cost).”
He added the $10 increase will raise about an additional $110,000 in fee revenue.
“The (transportation) department’s deficit for the next school year will be $260,000, is our estimate,” he said.
The Provincial government failing to increase transportation grant rates for school boards has also impacted the projected deficit, according to Director of Transportation Audrey Bloxham.
Staff also recommended fees for urban and rural students be gradually equalized. Urban students have traditionally paid more for busing than their rural counterparts because the cost to transport them was higher. However, according to Couture, this was no longer true.
The recommendation was to complete the equalization over a two-year period, beginning with the 2016/2017 school year when fees for rural students would go up by $20 per month versus $10 per month for urban students.
Trustee Bev LaPeare said she was glad to see the board moving in a direction to have fees be the same for urban and rural students.
“As we move forward, my concern would be that the rural might eventually end up paying more so I’m glad the idea is to equalize it so that everybody pays the same rate,” she said.
Trustee Norma Lang disagreed.
“Rural and urban students have a very different experience riding the bus. When kids have a choice of riding the bus for an hour and the fees are going up, the question on the parent’s mind is, do I want to pay more for fees and make my kid ride the bus for an hour or do I just drive them because I can get them there in 20 minutes,” she said.
The motion to increase fees passed by a vote of four to one with Lang voting against and Trustees Sylvia Eggerer and Helen Clease absent from the meeting.
More information about transportation fees is available on the RVS website at rockyview.ab.ca
