Additional Funds Expected to be
Released this Month

ETOBICOKE, Ontario (March 14, 2008) – Despite a minor slippage in the price of oil before the weekend, the Ontario Ministry of Education announced a one-time grant of $10.5 million to assist school board transportation services under the squeeze of fuel costs and a bump in current funding to bring all school boards up to par with its school bus cost benchmark.

Cheri Hayward, director of the Ministry's school support services branch, said each of the province's 72 public and Catholic school boards will receive a 1.35 percent increase to the net 2007-2008 transportation expenditure for fuel. In a memo to local directors of education, she noted that some school boards have fuel escalator clauses in their school bus contracts. The new funds are to be paid out this month to school bus operators that have to this point taken on those additional costs without additional compensation from school boards.

Hayward also announced a more than 40 percent increase in projected funds for the current school year to assist boards that have current transportation contract rates set below the provincial cost benchmark of $41,500 Canadian a year to operate one 72-passenger school bus. The increase was first announced last August as a one-time grant of $12 million based on average transportation costs for the 2006-2007 school year, but rising operating costs showed the need to increase funding to $16.9 million to reflect real contract rates. Before school boards see any of that money, the provincial government must pass the regulation. The Ministry said that process should be completed by the end of the month.

The Ontario School Bus Association said the cost benchmark funding was expected to address improved wages of school bus employees as well as bus condition.

Deloitte & Touche LLP performed the benchmark study and found that direct operating costs made up nearly two-thirds of the total average cost per bus, and a “large variance in driver wages across the province based on local market conditions; however, a detailed examination of potential regional differences in driver wages was out of the scope of this study.” There were also considerable differences in the average fuel cost for the provinces rural and urban costs. To deal with these fuel increases, the study recommended school bus operators purchase diesel in bulk.