School District 23 has approved changes to bus fees for the upcoming school year for Central Okanagan kids.
Fees for school bus riders will now be $200 for the year, for the first 2 kids in a family, then $100 for each of the next 2 children.
The $200 base rate is a reduction for some kids, but an introduction to fees for others. Bus riders within a certain close vicinity of their school are paying $250 this year, while kids outside of that range are being charged $0.
The new rate applies to all students on the bus.
“There’s about 2000 (riders) that were paying $250 and there were about 3300 that were paying nothing, that will now pay $200,” according to SD23 Secretary-Treasurer, Eileen Sadlowski. “It’s about a dollar a day to ride the bus because there’s, on average, about 200 school days in a year. We thought that was quite reasonable. Other school districts do charge as well, and the ones that we’ve looked at actually charge more than that.”
Sadlowski says the changes will move the school bus program from a ‘break even’ scenario to a profitable one, and the District has the money earmarked for bus service. “We’ve got some expansion of programs on the Westside coming up and we’ve got a reconfiguration, so we may need some additional bus routes over there. That’ll be the first priority and then it will just go to alleviate pressures.”
Parents need to buy before July. After June 30th the discount $200 fee, for the first 2 kids in a family, will go up to $225. The $100 price for the 3rd and 4th children will rise to $112.50.