With the Chinook's Edge School Division's transportation department deficit now sitting at more than $500,000, officials are examining bus routes to look for efficiencies, says Shawn Russell, associate superintendent of corporate services.
A transportation report was presented to trustees at the board's monthly meeting on Oct. 12. The report shows a projected 2016-17 transportation budget deficit of $546,256.
“We are looking at ways that we can try to reduce that deficit over the course of this year and ways that we can be more efficient, but not compromise the level of service that we provide to students and families. We have to look at the efficiencies of our routes,” Russell said in an interview.
The report stated that the in-town school bus shuttle service provided in the towns of Carstairs, Olds, Innisfail and Sylvan Lake represents the greatest expense per student for transportation.
“We do have to look out our in-town shuttles, our in-town bus routes that we run where parents pay a fee to be part of that,” he said. “The fee doesn't give us a cost recovery for those routes so those are definitely costing us some money in terms of our overall budget.
“We will be looking at ways that we can maybe be more efficient in those areas, looking at our routes to make sure we are running them as efficiently as we can in terms of the number of students on each bus, making sure we are at capacity.”
Asked if there are any plans to end the in-town shuttles, he said, “No, there's been no talk of that at this point. We are looking at all the options that are out there.”
The joint busing agreement recently signed with Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools has resulted in a saving of about $140,000, he said.
In related news, the division has spent about $700,000 to purchase seven new school buses to replace older units. There are currently 107 buses in the division's fleet.
The division's policy is to replace older buses with new ones to lower the average age and the average kilometres on the overall fleet, he said.
“This is part of our annual renewal,” he said. “In order to maintain our fleet at a reasonable age, we need to replace seven buses a year and now we've got our seven buses.”
The Innisfail-based Chinook's Edge School Division operates schools in Mountain View and Red Deer counties.
"We are looking at ways that we can try to reduce that deficit over the course of this year."Shawn Russellassociate superintendent of corporate services
