RVS Board requesting parent feedback to dismal budget options

The Rocky View School (RVS) transportation budget is facing a $1 million shortfall for the 2018-19 school year and the options to rectify the deficit may have direct impacts on families.

However, before the school board decides how to rectify the deficit it is asking the public for feedback.

“Over the last number of years, we’ve sort of done our best for the school division to find efficiencies. Where can we cut? How can we make the cost of busing the least amount as possible? We’ve done the easy stuff and now we have some hard decisions to make,” said Trustee Fiona Gilbert.

The board has come up with seven cost-saving solutions and is inviting parents and staff to return their feedback in a survey.

The highest cost-savers include adjusting school bell times to accommodate double or triple runs in urban communities tagged at between $400,000 and $500,000 in savings; moving closest bus stop to 2.4 km from all urban schools (currently 1.5 km for K-8 and two km for grades 9 to 12 schools) at $320,000 and scrapping early Friday dismissals by creating consistent school completion times throughout the week at $250,000.

Each of these will impact families’ schedules and potentially childcare.

As far as revenue options, the board has only one solution – transferring up to $1 million from the instructional budget to transportation, which could result in swelling of class sizes.

Gilbert said $1 million is equivalent to 10 teachers and spread across 53 schools in the jurisdiction, it equates to one-fifth of a teacher per school. However, in practice, it means the number of support staff, teachers, or classroom resources would be reduced in some schools.

Gilbert added the instructional budget is $212 million per year and said by some measure taking from the instructional might have the smallest impact on families.

“You never want to take money out of your instruction budget. Every dollar counts,” she said. “To me and to you, a million dollars is a lot of money. When you look at it at the full picture of the instruction budget, it’s only half a per cent.”

Still, class sizes are already reaching capacity and many are brimming over. A number of Cochrane kindergarten to Grade 3 classes, which are recommended to have only 17 students per class, are sitting at 20 and more.

“Education funding in Alberta, going back years, was not funded appropriately,” Gilbert said. A lot of the efficiencies in the past, nobody would have noticed… The ones that are now on the block impact families. That’s why, to me, it’s important to get the consultations.”

Greg Luterbach, RVS’ superintendent, said the deficit is a problem the board has been combating for years and is a result of multiple factors compounding.

“Ideally, the board would rather not be in this position, but given the funding provided for transportation, they need and want to hear from the public,” Luterbach said.

New legislation in place has been limiting revenue options for school divisions as well as adding costs.

Previously, the RVS board charged transportation fees to all students riding the bus, but last spring the provincial government implemented Bill 1, an act to eliminate school fees. This meant RVS went from charging close to 14,000 students bus fees down to a little more than 4,000.

Since 2008, the cost of transportation has inflated by 18 per cent while grants only increased by 1.27 per cent in the same time frame.

“Some of the levers, whether that be transportation fees, are now being limited or taken away from boards to be able to combat the increasing inflationary pressures with grants that didn’t increase,” said Greg Luterbach, RVS superintendent. “Suddenly without that, now the game has changed.”

The carbon levy, which also added $360,000 in energy costs for RVS to absorb, topped off the board’s financial troubles, according to the division.

Last spring, the board agreed to reduce the reserve funds to zero to limit the cost to parents but in doing so eliminated that as a future option.

Gilbert said looking back, other options could have been weighed.

With the advantage of hindsight, you can look back at that as say maybe we should have made some different decisions in the past, but now we’re in the place that we’re in.”

Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) takes an opposed stance to dipping into the instructional budget.

“Teachers understand that Rocky View Schools and other school boards have to make some tough choices, but let’s be clear about priorities. It hardly makes sense to divert funding from student instruction to transportation if that means that students will be driven to over-crowded, under-resourced schools,” said ATA President Greg Jeffery. “The Rocky View Schools survey appears to be a call for the provincial government to re-examine education funding, which is something the ATA would welcome.”

David Eggen, Alberta Minister of Education, said in an email response to the Cochrane Eagle that education is a top priority.

“We cut school fees so Alberta parents wouldn’t be forced to choose between paying down their mortgage and paying for their child’s education. For too long, under the previous Conservative government, school fees were hiked and parents were left paying hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for their children’s basic education,” Eggen said.

He added that the cutting of fees puts $3.7 million back in the pockets of parents.

“We are looking for trustees at Rocky View to step up in support of this work and do their part to direct as much funding as possible to support students and their families,” said Eggen.

To access the RVS survey, go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZCK26P5