our new carbon tax will have a negative impact on school boards

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't mind if it was actually making a difference, but our carbon tax makes everyone poorer.



http://globalnews.ca/news/2668803/edmonton-area-school-boards-bracing-for-impact-of-carbon-tax/">http://globalnews.ca/news/2668803/edmon ... arbon-tax/">http://globalnews.ca/news/2668803/edmonton-area-school-boards-bracing-for-impact-of-carbon-tax/

Alberta's new carbon tax is expected to hit school boards in the pocketbook.



On Jan. 1, the cost of diesel will go up more than five cents a litre while the cost of gasoline will go up more than four cents a litre. Hikes are also expected for natural gas and propane. The tax is expected to go up again in 2018 – diesel will cost more than eight cents more per litre while gasoline will cost more than six cents more per litre.



Cunningham Transport is a private contractor providing bus service for the Edmonton Public Schools, Edmonton Catholic Schools, St. Albert Public Schools, Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools, the Francophone School District in Edmonton and the Sturgeon School Division.



Laura Doroshenko said the company has 168 buses to transport students and she estimates it will cost the company $40,000 more next year to fuel up the buses.





"We're just a small contractor. It's a huge cost," she said.



"I'm not happy about the extra costs but that's the way it works."



Doroshenko said she doesn't expect the company to go bankrupt but admits it will cut into its bottom line. She said the company has had preliminary conversations with the school boards about how the extra costs will be passed onto them.



"The money is going to have to come from somewhere. It's going to have to be ironed out," she said.



The Edmonton Catholic School Board said the carbon tax will set transportation costs back $217,000 for the 2016-2017 school year. It cites similar numbers for the 2017-2018 school year.



Board chair Marilyn Bergstra said natural gas costs will set it back $220,000 for school year 2016-2017 and $520,000 in the 2017-2018 school year.



Bergstra admits the extra costs will result in belt tightening for the school board.



"We'll have to adjust our budgets. I'm not sure at this point where we will find that revenue. How that will play out at this time is too early to tell," she said.



When asked whether parents can expect to see the costs passed onto them in the form of higher school fees, Bergstra was vague.





"It's absolutely a possibility, yes. I wouldn't suggest that would be our first go-to and again, budget is a very complex process," she said.



"We have no means to raise fees other than we can take in a little bit of school fees, which we just announced we're not going to do for the upcoming year. We're very limited in our capacity to make adjustments. If we experience a loss here, we have to offset it somewhere else."



READ MORE: 'A $3B carbon tax they cannot afford': Wildrose leader responds to Notley TV address



Bergstra said she has not spoken directly with the province about the impact of the carbon tax but said she would welcome any relief it could offer, such as rebates.



RELATED: Wildrose claims carbon tax will cost Albertans more than NDP suggests



The Edmonton Public School Board does not have any numbers yet about how the carbon tax will affect its budget.



But board chair Michael Janz said it is anticipating higher costs and it's asking the province to chip in.



"To what extent they may be mitigated and adjustments may be given in the first year or so, we will continue those discussions," he said.





"We anticipate there may be steps the government could take to help us adjust and find efficiencies."



Janz said it is too early to discuss whether costs associated with the carbon tax will be passed onto parents.



"All of our decision around school fees will be made at a future public board meeting, this includes transportation fees," he said.



The Wildrose said the NDP needs to share the full cost of the carbon tax on the education system.



"This carbon tax will impact every school board across the province and only make things worse for families and classrooms at a time when Albertans can least afford it," Wildrose education critic Mark Smith said in a statement.



"This is just another example of the NDP government misleading Albertans about the full costs of its carbon tax on families."



In a statement to Global News, Education Minister David Eggen said the department will "continue working with school boards and education partners as we implement our Climate Leadership Plan."



Despite the impact it will have on the family-run business, Doroshenko said she supports the carbon tax.



"We all have to do our part in changing how we are in terms of [being] environmentally conscious and I think this is a good step forward," she said

[Anonymous]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

[Anonymous]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

It is such a bad time right now in Alberta to be taking more money away from the people.

[Anonymous]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

It is such a bad time right now in Alberta to be taking more money away from the people.

It would not be as bad if it were revenue neutral, but that is not the case in Alberta like it is BC.

[Anonymous]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

It is such a bad time right now in Alberta to be taking more money away from the people.

It would not be as bad if it were revenue neutral, but that is not the case in Alberta like it is BC.

And it was very bad timing too iron horse jockey.

[RW]

They do that here too and it's ridiculous!  That money should be for education not carbon tax.

[Anonymous]

Our premier, Brad Wall has said no carbon tax for Saskatchewan.

[Anonymous]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

Cap and trade is horrible.

[JOE]

I don't like carbon taxes either, but it is better than cap and trade.

It is such a bad time right now in Alberta to be taking more money away from the people.

During an economic downturn, its not a good time to tax people or companies, if the goal is to get Alberta moving again. NDP is making all the wrong choices at the wrong time. Notley will like go down in history as the 'Bob Rae of Alberta'. 1 term premier who leaves behind a huge fiscal mess.



Notley should take a page from Obama's playbook. Don't raise taxes at least until the economy has turned a corner.



Trouble is NDP are what Canadian PM Louis St. Laurent called 'Liberals in a hurry.' They don't take their time, they don't pace themselves. They want too much at once without a credible plan to make it work.



Socialism needs to find a way to make it pay for itself.

[JOE]

Anyways, what was so bad about Jim Prentice? I thought he was pretty decent. He seemed to pay the price for all the incompetent leaders the Tories had before him. Albertans threw out the wrong guy. His austerity budget was what Alberta needed at the time. He accurately foresaw the coming downturn, but nobody would listen. Nobody likes a doubter/the bearer of bad news  I guess. Actually, he's the kind of premier British Columbia could use right now. Straight talking, level headed, smart, competent, yet pragmatic and somewhat progressive. 'Liberal Light'. That's who I would've voted for if I lived there. NDP/Notley seem rather loony. Its hard to see how they'll get re-elected unless they drastically change their game plan now.

[Anonymous]

Anyways, what was so bad about Jim Prentice? I thought he was pretty decent. He seemed to pay the price for all the incompetent leaders the Tories had before him. Albertans threw out the wrong guy. His austerity budget was what Alberta needed at the time. He accurately foresaw the coming downturn, but nobody would listen. Nobody likes a doubter/the bearer of bad news  I guess. Actually, he's the kind of premier British Columbia could use right now. Straight talking, level headed, smart, competent, yet pragmatic and somewhat progressive. 'Liberal Light'. That's who I would've voted for if I lived there. NDP/Notley seem rather loony. Its hard to see how they'll get re-elected unless they drastically change their game plan now.

My understanding is that premier Prentince did not deliver a Mike Harris or Ralph Klein type budget? It only controlled spending increases.

[Anonymous]

Laura Doroshenko said the company has 168 buses to transport students and she estimates it will cost the company $40,000 more next year to fuel up the buses.





"We're just a small contractor. It's a huge cost," she said.



"I'm not happy about the extra costs but that's the way it works."



Doroshenko said she doesn't expect the company to go bankrupt but admits it will cut into its bottom line. She said the company has had preliminary conversations with the school boards about how the extra costs will be passed onto them.



"The money is going to have to come from somewhere. It's going to have to be ironed out," she said.



The Edmonton Catholic School Board said the carbon tax will set transportation costs back $217,000 for the 2016-2017 school year. It cites similar numbers for the 2017-2018 school year.

Very interesting topic to me.  Here in the US midwest and mid-south, school bus contracts are bid using a stated price per gallon for ultra-low-sulfur diesel, with a floating subcharge or surcharge according to markets and taxes.  Thus the actual cost of the fuel is borne 100% by the school district and is neutral to the bus company.  



A full size diesel school bus averages about 2.2 miles per liter, thus a five cents per liter surtax would be adding 2.3 cents per mile to costs.  In my little town there are forty school buses, driving an average of maybe 200 miles a week, 36 weeks a year.  This nickel surtax would add at most $7,000 a year to the total cost, shared among a few school districts.  It may seem inconsequential, but for me there are two larger questions.



First, the baseline fuel budget for all those buses (pre-surtax) was already in the neighborhood of $75K.  Second, not all students ride the buses.  A friend of mine who drives a rural high school route says that there are 45 to 50 students who live on his route, but he has never seen more than half of them on his bus.  Some never ride, and by the end of the school year he is only carrying perhaps fifteen of them regularly.  The remaining students are getting to the high school via private auto, a cost not directly covered by taxpayers.  



Yet it is still a cost of "education" as we know it. as are the rest of the costs of operating a fleet of school buses...and they are much greater than the hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel consumed.  



I'm just wondering whether anyone is getting value received for the cost of doing schools the way we do them.

[Anonymous]

Between Calgary and Edmonton there are nearly 2.5 million people..



That's a lot of school buses, ambulances and fire trucks..



Our property taxes have been rising at more than twice the rate of inflation..



When our economy is down and people are still losing jobs, does anyone think it's wise to make life more expensive?



It's not like this tax will have any impact on the planet.

Carbon taxes are preferable to cap and trade. But, they serve political and not scientific purposes.

[Anonymous]

Between Calgary and Edmonton there are nearly 2.5 million people..



That's a lot of school buses, ambulances and fire trucks..



Our property taxes have been rising at more than twice the rate of inflation..



When our economy is down and people are still losing jobs, does anyone think it's wise to make life more expensive?



It's not like this tax will have any impact on the planet.

Carbon taxes are preferable to cap and trade. But, they serve political and not scientific purposes.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

I was reading this will cost the Edmonton school board alone $770, 000 over the next two years.