With Rocky View Schools (RVS) transportation fees projected to rise by up to 47 per cent for the next school year, officials are not looking to blame Bill 1 but the lack of government funding over the last decade.
“It wasn’t Bill 1,” said Darrell Couture, associate superintendent of business and operations with the school division.
“The government hasn’t kept pace with the cost for the last 10 years … if we get no grants to transport someone, where does the money come from? It has to come from user fees.”
Increasing more than 40 per cent – in some cases up to 47 per cent – the transportation fees proposed for next year are projected to max out at $650 per family for students living less than 2.4 kilometres from their designated school and transporting students to a school other than their designated school, compared to the $460 per family maximum this year.
Families in Cochrane will see savings with the elimination of instructional fees, $25 per student with children in kindergarten, $105 per student in grades one to eight, and $145 per student in grades nine to 12. However, with the rise of the transportation fees, some parents are now paying up to $105 more per student and up to $190 more per family.
Bill 1 was announced earlier this year by the Alberta Government as a way to save Alberta families money by eliminating fees for instructional materials and transportation fees for families who live more than 2.4 kilometres.
While Couture applauded the Bill as “beneficial” for families, officials acknowledged that the transportation cost increase will translate to additional costs for some families who do not fall under the new regulations.
“The reality is with Bill 1 that fee increases could only go on those people living within 2.4 kilometres of their school or (students) who are not attending their designated school so the opportunity to spread that deficit across more people no longer exists,” Greg Luterbach, superintendent of Rocky View Schools said.
“The fee issues, as you look at it, we have about a $1 million deficit in our transportation budget, so looking forward over the past number of years we’ve been using reserves to help buffer any changes.”
Using more than $600,000 from transportation reserves to fund the deficit the division incurred this year, officials said the division is projecting to drain the $1.25 million transportation reserve this fall by taking another $600,000 to cover the $1 million shortfall. The other $400,000 will come from the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) to cover its portion of transportation costs handled by RVS.
Catholic students who utilize bus services will follow the same regulations set out in Bill 1. Students outside the 2.4 km range will only be charged bus fees if they attend a non-designate school or are accessing specialty programs.
Some confusion arose over the mention of students attending a faith-based school having to pay the fees, but RVS’s definition of faith-based in this context applies to alternative schools such as Cochrane Christian Academy, not Catholic schools.
“I feel that we already pay too much in fees for busing and school. Lower income parents are just getting by – I feel that school fees and busing fees shouldn’t be mandatory because going to school is a right, our children have a right to education,” said Jessica Reginato, a Cochrane parent.
Rocky View Schools operates approximately 50 schools with more than 21,000 students.
While neighbouring school divisions, the Chinook’s Edge School Division and Foothills School Division said they are not facing issues with transportation costs and fees, Chinook Superintendent Kurt Sacher said if it wasn’t for the grants given by the government for the loss in educational fees, the division would have been forced to layoff staff.
“The (government) has great intentions to try to help Alberta families but it is very complicated to compensate a jurisdiction,” Sacher said.
The minister of education released a statement last week saying government officials will be working individually with school divisions to ensure fees do not rise due to Bill 1.
“Through Budget 2017, the government announced $54 million, for the 2017/18 school year, to reduce school fees. This funding will be allocated to school boards through a School and Transportation Fees Reduction Grant. The funding allocated to boards will be based on fee revenues as reported by boards in their 2015/16 financial statements,” David Eggen, education minister said in an email.
Basing the funding on previous student enrollment numbers is problematic for Rocky View Schools, which is one of the fastest growing school districts in southern Alberta. Cochrane’s schools alone grew by an enrolment of 677 students over the past three years.
The 2017/18 RVS School Budget was submitted to the Minister of Education’s office earlier this month, and is pending approval.
If the minister denies approval for the bus fee increase, both Luterbach and Couture said the division will have to make choices on how to make up the funds, which range from finding efficiencies in the budget to changing service levels.
“The message is we think we are justified in our fee increase and hopefully the ministry will agree,” Couture said.
