NDP review aims to ‘help’ CBE

With tensions between the NDP government and the Calgary Board of Education running high, Education Minister David Eggen said Monday the province’s operational review of the CBE is simply intended to help the school board.

Last Friday, Eggen took the unusual step of ordering a full review of the CBE’s operations to ensure it’s properly spending more than $1 billion in public funding.

He said Monday the review was not prompted by concerns of wrongdoing, but suggested it was linked to a dispute between the government and school board over busing costs for students in alternative programs.

“It’s not a question of any impropriety,” Eggen said at an Edmonton announcement on busing fees.

“We just want to ensure that we have the best systems available for transportation and administration within the Calgary Board of Education. They had made it fairly clear that they were not able to have their transportation and some of their other functions smoothly operating. So I wanted to make sure that we are using these public monies in the best way possible.”

“So we want to help them. We’re going to work with them together.”

Bill 1, passed in the spring sitting of the legislature, eliminates many student fees and requires school boards to cover the costs of busing for K-9 students who live more than 2.4 kilometres from their designated schools.

Eggen’s announcement Monday was to highlight the legislation’s cap on the cost for junior and senior high school students who take municipal transit 2.4 km or more to their designated school.

Those students will pay, at most, the difference between the cost of a municipal transit pass and provincial transportation funding. In Calgary, that would mean a maximum transit pass cost of $151, a savings of approximately $550 for the school year.

The NDP government and the CBE are currently at odds, however, over the board’s plan to have students taking transit to alternative programs pay the $700 Calgary transit fee. Eggen said he won’t allow that to happen, under regulations that allow him to review any fee increase of more than five per cent.

The CBE says, however, that the province had been fully apprised of its plans and the government needs to put up more funding if it wants to alter the board’s plans.

The government’s operational review will look at areas such as transportation fees, service levels, ride times and routing, but will also go far beyond those areas.

REVIEW IN AUGUST

The review, scheduled to be conducted in mid-August, will take a comprehensive look at CBE’s financial records on spending, including the board system and administration, trustee spending, head office staffing levels and facility costs.

In an interview Monday, CBE chair Joy Bowen-Eyre said the school board’s operations are regularly monitored by the province and she welcomed the scrutiny.

“We have nothing to hide, and if there are any questions or concerns we’re happy to answer anything the minister might have,” she said.

Bowen-Eyre said the government’s announcement on junior and high school busing fees Monday was information that had already been provided.

But she said there is still uncertainty over whether the government’s $18-million funding increase to CBE to address fees is sufficient to cover the costs related to Bill 1.

“There is still a lot of questions we have for the province regarding Bill 1, and the regulations and the rollout and the amount of money that we have received to cover the expectations that have been put upon us.”