QUEEN’S PARK—School Bus Ontario (SBO), the organization that lobbies on behalf of school bus companies across the province, has issued an alarm over recent cuts contained in the funding formula utilized by the province.
“Some bus operators are still owed millions for the 2023/24 school year and are heading into this new year without knowing how they will be paid for fuel,” said Nancy Daigneault, SBO executive director, in a news release, adding that all regions of the province will be hit by the cuts, including Northern Ontario.
Ms. Daigneault maintains that the new funding formula contains “harsh fuel cuts and other changes” that negatively affect each region. As a result, the association said it feels there isn’t enough money flowing to the operators to pay for basics like adequate driver compensation, driver retention bonuses and new buses.
The Ministry of Education has imposed a reduction of between .56 to .58 cents per litre of fuel for the upcoming school season—a move that will leave school bus operators “worried about filling their tanks to cover the millions of kilometres a day travelled by their professional drivers.”
Ms. Daigneault said the provincial cuts have created “an untenable situation and each region or operation will now have to evaluate how to deal with such a massive loss of funding” with some operators perhaps cutting back on office staff to deal with cuts or try to make do with less dispatch staff. This, she contends, will result not only in communication delays with schools and parents, but also that “eventually slowdowns, delays or continuous cancellations will persist.”
“The first day of school is upon us, and once again bus operators are facing funding shortfalls that not only create a September of discontent,” she said, “but raise the possibility of even more school bus cancellations and disruptions in some regions.”
Ms. Daigneault asserted that “operators require proper funding so they can focus on job-one—getting our kids to school and home safely.”
SBO reports that the costs to operate school buses have risen dramatically in the last four years in Ontario including: the price of new buses rising 71 percent; bus parts, including tires and brakes increasing 50 percent; insurance rates rising more than 30 percent; and driver wages having gone up in the neighbourhood of 38 percent.
The original formula also left out the cost of providing vans for special needs students—an oversight the SBO characterises as “stunning.”
“The confusing formula begs the question ‘who’s running the show?’” said SBO President Nick McRae, in the news release. “We’re not delivering groceries, we are safely transporting a very special cargo—our children.”
