2011/2012 Transportation Fee Schedule back before the board at June 7 public meeting

The 2011/2012 Transportation Fee Schedule had been on the public agenda for the May 3 board meeting. However, it was pulled prior to the meeting to allow for changes in the recommendations to accommodate the pecuniary interests that arose for some trustees and maximize their opportunity to discuss, debate and vote on the fee structure.

The revised report came back to the public meeting of the board held May 17. Trustees, who participated in the discussion, rejected the 60% fee increase and returned the report to Administration for new scenarios for funding. This does not mean that fees will not be raised in the returning report. It means the system of rebates for High School (Calgary Transit Services), family maximums and fee increases will have to be rejigged or eliminated or some combination thereof. The revised report is expected to be on the agenda for the June 7 public meeting of the board.

CAPSC has blogged previously about government funding levels for student transportation, ways the board has and is trying to minimize fee increases, and cost factors that challenge metro urban boards like the Calgary Board of Education (see blog archive for May). CAPSC has also spoken out in the media about the impacts fee increases will have on families.

One of the issues impacting student transportation costs is urban sprawl and this has been a high profile civic issue both here in Calgary and in Edmonton. It is clear that cities with populations of 1M plus like Calgary face deeper and more complex issues and factors like sprawl and complexity may not be fully accounted for in the province's funding formula for metro urban boards. This is currently under study by Alberta Education.

Back in May 2005, the Alberta School Boards' Metro School Boards Study raised the issue of urban sprawl and the complexities metro urban boards face. Discussion of these issues start on page 43 of the report. All of this is revisited in the later report, At the breaking point: Alberta's student transportation system.

The Metro Study suggested that the following factors need to be considered in a new transportation funding framework:

1. Needs and requirements of special education student transportation

2. Location of magnet schools

3. Urban sprawl – need to transport students from high growth areas on the periphery of the cities into the lower growth areas in older neighbourhoods

4. Traffic complexities and impact on ride times

5. Student safety – traffic patterns, school bus drop off bypasses, major
traffic routes and the nature of the areas that students must pass through

6. Need to utilize a wide range of transportation service providers – from
taxies to yellow busses

7. Increasing costs of accessing public transit

8. Needs of students and demands of parents

9. Costs of securing, training and maintaining qualified drivers and other
persons

10. Programs of choice

11. Small schools by necessity

12. School closures

13. Service carrier contracts

An excerpt from the later report notes that in the 2007/2008 school year, "metro boards were provided with funding to implement a computerized transportation software program like Edulog or Versa Track. It is anticipated that the implementation of these software programs will provide for a transported student information base that can be used as the foundation for a simplified revised metro allocation formula that considers actual eligible transported students rather than expected."

The CBE had to purchase the software in the spring of 2007 and have submitted reports to Alberta Education for four years now - the first of which was during the 2007-08 school year.

Of interest, is a timely article that recently appeared in Fast Forward Weekly's Calgary Life & Style Urban Living section, "A costly ride to school," that discusses the hidden costs of urban sprawl as it applies to student transportation. Urban sprawl is a complex issue with no easy, fast answers but public awareness and willingness to address these issues seems to be on the rise.

In the meantime...