How Red Deer public school board keeps administration costs low

To understand how Red Deer’s public school board keeps its administration costs so low, it may be useful to know that its chief superintendent drives a 17-year-old Ford Explorer with an odometer that’s long since rolled past 300,000 kilometres.

“Staff laugh at me and mock me when I drive up at a school,” Piet Langstraat says. “I guess it reflects my view that whether it’s taxpayer’s money or your own, you shouldn’t be wasting it on luxuries, especially during hard times.”

From its total budget of $101 million this year, the Red Deer Public School district will spend just 2.7 per cent on administration, while devoting 81.6 per cent of its budget to instruction.

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