September 17, 2003 Vol. 29 No. 7  
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Foothills School Division forced to slash budget

By John Barlow
Editor

The Foothills School Division (FSD) is scrambling to slash its budget after actual enrollment numbers fell well below projections for the 2003/2004 school year.
It was announced last week enrollment in the anticipated FSD is down by approximately 170 students (firm numbers will be announced on Sept. 30). The school division receives about $5,000 from the province for each student meaning FSD is experiencing an $800,000 funding shortfall.
FSD superintendent Jim McLellan said such an enormous gap between actual enrollment and the projection means the division will have to cut costs.
“This is huge,” said McLellan. “This is surprising, we were not expecting this.”
One of the biggest surprises for McLellan was that Okotoks was among the communities that had the largest decline in enrollment.
At Okotoks’ five schools, Percy Pegler, Okotoks Junior High, Big Rock, Dr. Morris Gibson and Foothills Composite High School, enrollment dropped from 3,013 in September, 2002 to 2,978 in September, 2003 — a decline of 35 students.
“Okotoks took the biggest hit and it is the fastest growing community,” said McLellan.
The High Country area also saw a significant decline as Oilfields High School and C. Ian McLaren School in Black Diamond have 31 fewer students and Turner Valley School has 11 fewer students.
As a result of the decline in enrollment, the school division must revise its 2003/2004 budget. The FSD board held an emergency meeting last Wednesday along with the principals in the division to devise budget revisions.
McLellan said they were hoping staff numbers would not have to be impacted, but as a result of the substantial shortfall it appears jobs will be affected.
“There has to be some people involved,” he said. “People will be affected, but we will try and avoid that at all costs.”
As of Wednesday, the division announced six full time teaching equivalents are being eliminated through attrition and part-time positions may also be affected.
In addition, three part-time contracts will be eliminated this fall.
Some other budget measures have been targeted including:
• Reducing all budgets by five to 10 per cent.
• Reducing travel budgets at all levels.
• Cancelling the annual administrator’s retreat.
• Deleting the survey program for one year.
• Instituting a hiring freeze and staffing review process.
• Reducing central administration budgets including those for board and senior staff.
• Reviewing major expenditures at all levels.

 
In this issue...
 

FRUSTRATED
User fees
crippling groups
See News

BUSTED
RCMP break up rural crime ring
See News

CHARGE!
HTA Knights improve to 2-0
See Sports

Running for a reason


- photos by John Barlow

Brittany Cudmore of Longview School runs up Longview Hill on Thursday for the Terry Fox Run. She, along with her mother, Lisa, and brother, Josh, were running in the event in memory of her grandma who succumbed to cancer in May of this year.

Turner Valley
contaminants reach River

By Darlene Casten
Staff reporter

Dramatic erosion in the Sheep River near Turner Valley has driven the west bank dangerously close to the contaminated soil of the Turner Valley Gas Plant.
Alberta Environment and Alberta Community Development, the owner of the property, said work must be done quickly to divert the river away from the site and contain contaminants.
Bill Strickland, Alberta Community Development spokesperson said hydrocarbons could be seen in the river at the gas plant site since this spring.
“We have seen small deposits of hydrocarbons,” he explained. “Surface stuff — like what you would see when there is a motor boat on the river.”
Since the discovery, water monitors have shown no detectable amounts of contaminants in the river,.
Detectable amounts are measured using a formula based on parts-per-litre. The formula being used by Alberta Environment in this case was not available by press time.
The erosion began with a flood in 1996, when the west bank of the river was approximately 50 metres from the gas plant site. Since then the banks have been retreating at a steady pace. However, this spring a metre to two metres of the bank was cut back, bringing the river up to the fence surrounding the site.
Gary Duguay, gas plant project manager for Alberta Community Development, said an assessment report and subsequent planning placed priorities elsewhere, as the river did not pose an immediate problem until recently.
“Because it has been so gradual we didn’t expect to lose as much as we did recently,” Duguay explained, adding that since the discovery the priority has shifted from on-site clean-up to re-routing the river.
A tender is currently outstanding for the diversion project, which is expected to cost $250,000.
“We are going to divert the river back to its original location,” Strickland said.
A containment wall is in the planning stages. In addition, a new monitoring system will be required to ensure the containment wall is holding back all contaminants.
The provincial government recently rededicated $1.5 million towards reclamation work at the site.
Strickland said the river diversion will be completed by spring and it is hoped that the containment work could also be finished at the same time.
     

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Published Wednesdays at Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Serving the communities of Okotoks, Aldersyde, Black Diamond, DeWinton, Longview, Millarville, Priddis, Turner Valley, Bragg Creek, and the rural ratepayers of the M.D. of Foothills. And now the World. Established August 3, 1976.