A trip to school for students will no longer be free come September.
Aspen View Public Schools (AVPS) trustees approved a transportation fee schedule during their regular board meeting last Thursday, which was held at Smith School.
All students will be charged an annual base fee of $75, with that fee being capped at $200 per family.
Those with alternative requests – such as being dropped off or picked up at another location on a regular basis – will pay an additional $75 per child.
Those with a child going to a school other than their designated school, will pay another $100 per child, with yard pickups costing an extra $100 per family.
The fees should bring in around $166,000 at a projected collection rate of 85 per cent. That revenue figure takes quite a chuck out of the transportation deficit.
Each part of the fee schedule was debated, but most of the trustees agreed that they were the right amounts.
“I know we had talked about taking baby steps,” said trustee Candy Nikipelo. “I am all for picking something in the middle. I’m thinking that the $75 fee is taking care of some of that deficit, but not overwhelming families in the beginning.”
“I actually quite like the $100 for school of choice,” said board chair Dennis MacNeil.
“The idea behind the policy is to protect small schools and I think we want to discourage people as much as we possibly can from leaving those small communities and so imposing that fee, I think is appropriate.”
Trustee Nancy Sand also brought forward the idea of capping the base fee at two students and bringing it higher later on. However, that idea was not the view of the rest of the trustees.
“I just think whatever we pick, we need to plan on staying at these numbers for a little bit,” said Nikipelo.
“Because if we’re changing every year because we want to, you know, reduce our deficit by a little bit more, it’s just too confusing. I think simplicity is the best.”
In addition to the fees, trustees have also cut some of the bus routes to achieve approximately $170,000 in savings, which combined will come close to covering the deficit.
“There’ll be four less routes this year,” said secretary-treasurer Rodney Boyko.
“The first ride in our division starts at 6:58 a.m. and that’s south of Athabasca. So, that was our benchmark.”
There remains the possibility that more bus routes could be cut.
“In all honesty, I’m hoping as we implement the transportation fees, we’re going to continue to work very hard to take a look at our routes and possibly move that (benchmark) north. I think as a goal, 7:15 should be our goal,” stated AVPS superintendent Mark Francis.
