Student transportation funding gets a $10 million boost
Edmonton... The Government of Alberta is increasing funding for student transportation by more than $10 million this year, in large part to address the unique busing needs of rural and smaller urban school boards.
The new money includes $4 million for a two per cent transportation grant rate increase to all school jurisdictions, plus another $6.2 million for school boards with specific transportation challenges - driving the total amount of student transportation funding above $203 million this year.
More than half of the $6.2 million will go toward ensuring that transportation funding, which typically is provided on a per-passenger basis, continues to be adequate in sparsely populated parts of the province where school boards are experiencing declining enrollments.
"There are many challenges when it comes to providing student transportation, especially in Alberta's rural communities," said Minister of Learning Dr. Lyle Oberg. "For example, while a bus may have fewer students to pick up and drop off than it did the year before, the route that bus must travel each day has not grown shorter, nor has the cost of running it grown less expensive."
The $6.2 million in new funding will be allocated as follows:
- $3.2 million for rural school boards with declining enrollments in sparsely populated districts.
- $1 million for school boards in smaller urban communities of 10,000 to 30,000 people, where efficiencies are more difficult to achieve than in larger urban areas.
- $200,000 to improve service for passengers in wheelchairs.
- $1.8 million to encourage boards to enter into cooperative busing arrangements with each other.
"The idea of providing incentives to encourage the sharing of services like transportation comes straight from Alberta's Commission on Learning," Oberg said. "Having one school jurisdiction in a community assume responsibility for the transportation of all students within that community will create administrative and operational savings."
The additional $6.2 million this year is the result of recommendations from the Rural Transportation Review Committee, which is comprised of representatives from the Alberta School Boards Association, Association of School Business Officials of Alberta, College of Alberta School Superintendents, Student Transportation Association of Alberta, Alberta Home and School Councils' Association and Alberta Learning. The committee was created to address issues of fair and equitable funding in rural Alberta and incentives to encourage cooperative busing.
"With this additional funding, we are confident that school boards, both rural and urban, will continue to have adequate funding to provide their students with this essential service," said Oberg.
