Lethbridge School District

By Lara Fominoff

School Districts raise concerns over City’s Fiscal and Operational Performance Review

Nov 26, 2019 | 11:30 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Both the Lethbridge School Division and the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division are worried about City Council’s decision Monday evening, to approve a recommendation from the Fiscal and Operational Performance Review, suggesting the school bus service contracts not be renewed at the end of June, 2020.

City Manager Bramwell Strain says the above local school divisions are the only ones in North America to contract school bus services from a municipality.

According to a news release, both school divisions are proud of the “unique relationship developed with the city over a number of years. It is a relationship touted as a model to aspire to provincially, and a model other regions are looking to implement in some capacity.”

The release outlines several concerns in relation to the operational review itself, including that costs exceed revenues.

“It’s certainly came as quite a surprise to hear that the collaboration that we’ve shared has been burdensome,” said Holy Spirit Catholic School Division Superintendent Chris Smeaton. “While the partnership has never been about making a profit, it has always been our intent that it operates on a cost recovery basis.”

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He added that in fact, they were informed by the City that the surplus of funds from the previous year’s operations would help decrease overall costs for the upcoming year.

According to the report, completed by Consultants KPMG “New legislation will require School Bus Operators to undergo mandatory Entry Level Training for Class 2 Drivers (MELT). This is anticipated to reduce the available labour pool of operators, as the course is expected to cost around $5,000, which is high, compared to an operator’s salary.” (pg. 196)

Also, the current yard where Lethbridge Transit stores its school buses is expected to reach capacity in the next five years. “Transit will likely need to acquire more property and additional facility space to support to support the expansion. This would also introduce some logistical challenges with the potential splitting of the fleet, resulting in increased travel time to complete maintenance.” (pg. 196)

The above points were not mentioned during Monday’s Council meeting; however, Strain did say that the City operates the school bus service on a cost recovery model, and that the city is concerned about liability issues.

Much of the KPMG report regarding school bus service is redacted. The City says that is to protect sensitive HR information, names and other privacy issues. A link to a copy of the report can be found here.

The school divisions meantime, say that the current fleet is used to its maximum capacity and they can operate more efficiently with the shared system, ensuring they have balanced transportation budgets. The result is that parents whose students live more than 2.4 km from their schools have not been charged a transportation fee.

Lethbridge School Division Superintendent Cheryl Gilmore says, “With our agreement with the city, provincial funding for transportation stays in Lethbridge, rather than leaving the city, which would be the case if the divisions are forced to enter into a third-party agreement.”