Decision on transportation fees expected soon from School District

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The School District 60 Board of Trustees is expecting a recommendation on what choice to make regarding transportation fees that could be implemented fully this upcoming school year.

Last spring, the School District to bring in a transportation fee of $100 for the 2015-16 school year, citing low transportation funding as a reason for this. For the 2014-15 school year, the district received one-time funding from surrounding communities to operate school bus transportation without the implementation of a fee.

The item was discussed during the Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, put forward by Trustee Jaret Thompson.

The district will have to wait until a budget announcement — expected to happen in mid-March — is made to know what decisions to make for sure.

If the budget announcement doesn’t yield the results the district needs, the decision will have to be postponed until April.

“At this point, we have not had any positive response into any additional funding coming from ministry to offset the previous reduction,” Secretary-Treasurer of School District 60, Doug Boyd, said.

“It would appear that we are going to have to do something, but what that looks like… it would be unfair to say at this point.”

Boyd recommended work be done from a staff level to come up through the budgetary process of what we will need to augment for transportation. A recommendation of what specifically to do is expected to come up in the next board meeting, on March 14.

The district previously stated that families wouldn’t see a full implementation of fees until at least the 2016-17 school year, if a solution can’t be worked out.