Alberta School Boards Association wants fund for fuel costs reinstated

The Alberta School Boards Association will be pushing for the government to reinstate a program from nearly a decade ago designed to help school divisions cover rising fuel costs.

At its general meeting Monday, the association passed a resolution to advocate for the minister of education to reinstate a fuel-price contingency fund which gave school boards monthly subsidies to help cover high costs before it was scrapped in 2013.

At a news conference Tuesday, ASBA president Marilyn Dennis said the price of fuel has a significant impact on school board budgets and the association wants to reduce the risk that schools could end up having to increase fees to parents to make up for extra costs.

“We are in a situation where we're seeing inflation and also seeing rising fuel costs, and budgets were not set up to be able to manage those additional price increases,” she said.

Trisha Estabrooks, board chairwoman for Edmonton Public Schools, said they kept their bus fees steady, but she is not sure how long they will be able to do that.

“As we look to the future and we see that increase in that price of gas, how long can we go on before we have to pass some of that price increase onto our families? And to be honest, that's not a situation we want to be in if we don't have to be,” said Estabrooks.

Estabrooks said Edmonton Public Schools is happy to support the ASBA'S resolution.

“The government talks about how there's been an increase to our transportation budgets, but the reality is with the sky-high price of insurance, the sky-high price of gas, the fuel to power our buses going up drastically, that slight increase we saw in the provincial budget isn't enough,” she said.

The association's resolution proposes the contingency fund be used when the price of diesel goes above $1.20 per litre.

Natural Resources Canada pegged the price of diesel in Edmonton this week at 187.9 cents per litre.

In a written statement from her office, B.C. Education Minister Adriana Lagrange said the latest budget saw an increase of $39 million over the next three years for school transportation funding, including $9 million for the 2022-23 school year. She said the government was monitoring the situation.

“I had the opportunity to address this while speaking at the Alberta School Boards Association spring meeting on June 6 and indicated that Alberta's government is currently exploring additional options to address rising student transportation costs,” Lagrange said.

“I hope to share more on this in the near future.”

Lagrange said the government's decision to suspend the collection of the provincial fuel tax saved school boards approximately $2 million for the 2021-22 school year.

For its part, the board at Edmonton Public Schools has said it expects its 2022-23 transportation costs to grow by more than the increase that the province is providing due to growth and pressures on operating costs, including driver compensation, insurance, fuel and training.

The board voted last month not to increase transportation fees and instead use a surplus of approximately $1.6 million that was accumulated during the 2020-21 school year from decreased ridership due to COVID-19 to cover the extra costs.