Public school board eyes hike to bus fees amid funding shortfall

While administrators propose a five to 10 per cent hike to student bus fees, one Edmonton public school trustee wants to eliminate bus fees altogether within four years.

Transportation surpluses are exhausted and Edmonton Public Schools is projecting a $5.5-million shortfall to move students around the city during the next school year, says a report going before the school board next Tuesday.

The district can shave off about $1.7 million in expenses by adjusting school bell times to combine routes, sharing 20 buses with Edmonton Catholic Schools, and signing new contracts with yellow bus companies, the report says.

Earlier this year, the public and Catholic boards failed to reach an agreement to create a shared busing service to help curtail costs and reduce student ride times.

Yellow bus and public transit pass fees for public students have remained fixed since 2014, says the report by Lorne Parker, assistant superintendent of infrastructure for the public district. Since then, yellow bus ridership is up 22 per cent, and city transit pass prices have risen.

Although school fees legislation introduced last year gives free or reduced bus rides to students who live more than 2.4 km from their designated school, the extra money from the province is based on three-year-old ridership numbers, the report said.

Public school district administrators propose three options:

Raise bus fees 10 per cent in

■

September 2018, which would be $3 more per month for yellow bus riders, and $5 more per month for transit riders. This hike would require the education minister’s approval.

Raise bus fees 10 per cent in September

■ 2018, and five per cent each subsequent year until 2021. This hike would also require the education minister’s approval.

Raise bus fees five per cent in

■

September 2018, and five per cent each subsequent year until 2021. This would cost yellow bus riders about $1 more per month, and transit pass riders about $2 more per month.

These proposed hikes may be a moot point if the board votes to approve a motion by trustee Michael Janz, which seeks to wipe out the hundreds of dollars parents pay annually for student transportation.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for any school board to contemplate a fee increase to parents when we haven’t realized all available efficiencies within the system,” Janz said in a Thursday interview.

He proposes phasing out the $13 million in annual fees by seeking more funding or relief from the City of Edmonton and provincial government.

More students would ride the bus if it was free, he said, which would ease the traffic mayhem around schools each morning and afternoon as many students are delivered and collected by car.

Reducing traffic would be better for the condition of city roads and the environment, and would help reduce stigma around transit use, he said. He questioned whether the school board can strike an arrangement with Edmonton Transit similar to post-secondary U-Passes, where all students are issued transit passes at a significantly cheaper rate.

“All of us have a role to play to enable better transportation for our communities,” he said. “The fewer cars we can have belching exhaust around our schools and clogging up our traffic, the better for all Edmontonians.”

Eliminating bus fees would also make the district more competitive with Edmonton Catholic Schools, which offers free busing for kindergarten students, he said.

Some parents are frustrated by provincial student fee reductions that left out children enrolled in alternative programs, such as French immersion. Janz wants to make busing costs equitable again.

Edmonton Public Schools is spending about $41 million on student transportation this year.