With the provincial government only several weeks away from releasing its education budgets to school boards across the province, the Chinook's Edge School Division is scrambling for funding options to buy new buses if new monies don't arrive.
“It is serious. We need to keep our fleet current,” said Colleen Butler, chair of the board for Chinook's Edge. “You can't run old buses that are going to fall apart all the time or your maintenance costs become huge. You have to replace buses on a regular basis. We are short of funds.”
Butler and Shawn Russell, associate superintendent of corporate services for Chinook's Edge, raised the issue of inadequate transportation budget funding, an ongoing issue with Chinook's Edge and other rural school boards across the province, at the board's monthly meeting in Innisfail on Feb. 10.
At that meeting, the board officially endorsed a new cooperative busing agreement that was reached last fall between Chinook's Edge and Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools, a deal that is expected to slow down escalating transportation budget deficits with both school boards.
“That transportation agreement will help but we have to look at this projected $700,000 deficit,” said Butler.
That cost to replenish Chinook's Edge's fleet of 76 buses was foremost on the minds of both Butler and Russell at the Feb. 10 board meeting.
Russell said the school division has been struggling with the ongoing deficit in its transportation budget for several years, and while it has been able to balance the operational side, the board has had serious challenges with meeting its capital needs, which includes the purchase of new buses.
For the 2015-16 school year the board had to dip into the division's reserves to purchase seven new buses, a practice it does every year to maintain the operational health of its fleet.
“You can't not purchase the buses. You have to renew your fleet,” said Russell. “The board is faced with having to do it but when we do it we don't have the funds, which results in a $700,000 deficit in the transportation budget.”
Butler quickly added the use of reserves in the coming school year to replenish the transportation budget to buy buses is not an option.
“You can't keep using reserves or pretty soon you don't have any reserves. That is a one-shot deal. You spend your reserves and then you don't have them anymore,” she said.
In the meantime, both Butler and Russell are anxiously awaiting what the province will provide for transportation when education budgets for school boards across the province are released in either March or April. Both said concerns over inadequate transportation funding have been passed on to the provincial government as well as regional MLAs.
“They (province) are just not doing it. Period. It's not whether it is fast or slow. They are not funding transportation adequately across the province,” said Butler, noting rural school boards have formed a group headed by Buffalo Trail Public Schools Regional Division to convince the government more funding is needed for transportation.
In the meantime, the funding issue for the purchase of seven new school buses will be a priority item at the upcoming Education Committee meeting on Feb. 24.
“We need to look at several scenarios on what we are going to do,” said Butler. “It is a huge concern. We have to get kids to school. It is ludicrous that the provincial government is not providing enough money to do that.
“We are hopeful the NDP government will give us adequate funding.”
