Bus funding could evaporate

Sonora High students walk in front of a row of school buses taking students home after school on Tuesday. Amy Alonzo Rozak/Union Democrat, copyright 2012

School busing services will not get state funding next year if the proposal passes, causing concern among rural schools that they will have to pay for transportation with already diminishing school district funds.

A bill that would distribute the cost of school busing across all California school districts, including urban ones that no longer provide busing service, is making its way through the state Legislature this week. If it doesn’t pass, local officials say it could force them to cut school programs and consolidate bus routes during the 2012-2013 school year.    

Thanks to recent budget cuts, school districts will pay a substantial portion for this school year. Many are relying on student fees to help offset the cost.
For the school districts in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, it’s a choice between paying from the general fund or having fewer students in school. That, in turn, would lead to a reduction in state revenue received on the basis of average daily student attendance.    

“Unlike an urban school district, we have to transport our students in order for them to attend school,” said Calaveras High School Principal Ric Stitt. “It’s not a choice. We’re a far-flung district.”    

If the school district didn’t bus students to Calaveras High, said Stitt, a significant number of students would have trouble getting there. About 80 percent of the district’s students rely on buses, according to Mike Merrill, assistant superintendent of business services for Calaveras Unified School District.    

The situation is similar in Tuolumne County, with many students traveling long distances to and from school.    

“We have buses that travel many miles to pick up one or two students,” said Joe Silva, the Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools. “We have to pay for those miles.”    

School districts in both Tuolumne and Calaveras counties are considering hub systems for bus routes, with parents dropping their students off at designated stops on busier roads so that buses no longer have to drive side streets.    

According to Silva, eliminating state funds for school transportation would still affect rural schools disproportionately.    

“In a sense, it’s discrimination,” said Silva. “We’re hopeful that the governor will reexamine how this money is taken.”    

Calaveras Unified School District would lose about $1.34 million in state funding for school buses in 2012-2013 if legislators don’t pass SB 81, Merrill said. The measure would distribute cuts in funding for school transportation across all districts in the state. It passed by a vote of 19-4 in the Assembly Budget Committee on Tuesday and will be up for a vote in the Assembly on Thursday.    

The district is already dealing with a total budget shortfall of $1.5 million for the 2011-2012 school year. If the proposed transportation cuts compound planned reductions in per-pupil funding, that shortfall would grow to an estimated $2.5 million for the 2012-2013 school year.    

Sonora Union High School District would lose about $450,000 allocated for busing, but according to Chief Business Official Kim Burr, midyear budget cuts meant that the school district got only $181,962 of state entitlement funds for the 2011-2012 school year.   

Sonora Union High School District also administers the busing of special-education students for Tuolumne County, with the costs shared among all the county school districts. On paper, the district was entitled to $300,135 in state funding for transportation of special needs students this year.    

After the midyear cuts that passed in November, the state ended up providing only $120,201 for transporting special needs students in 2011-2012, leaving the school districts to come up with the rest themselves. By federal law, districts cannot charge special needs students for transportation to and from school.    

Students who ride Calaveras Unified School District buses this year paid a $180 fee, about a dollar a day, to help offset the cost of busing under California’s recent budget cuts.    

It was the first time that the district has ever charged a transportation fee, Merrill said.    

Students who qualify for reduced-price school lunches pay $90 per school year, and those getting free lunches pay nothing to ride the buses. Special needs students also get free transportation.     

Altogether, 71 percent of Calaveras Unified School District students qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches and therefore do not pay full bus fees, according to Merrill.    

The district has 18 regular bus routes and five special education bus routes, with an additional three vans for individual special-needs students.    

Sonora High School and Summerville High School also started charging the general student population for bus services this year. Students at both high schools pay $120 a year to ride the bus to and from school. Students who qualify for reduced lunches pay $60, and those who qualify for free lunches pay nothing.    

Burr said the fees don’t even begin to cover the actual cost of busing, leaving the school district with a massive budget deficit.    

Sonora School District has an average 524 students riding the bus to school daily this year, according to Superintendent Leigh Shampain.   

It received $172,445 in transportation funding from the state. The district added $42,000 from its general fund to cover the actual cost of transportation.
Summerville School District, also headed by Shampain, has an additional $70,000 transportation bill for 52 students. Neither district charged students for bus transportation this year.    

With the possibility that the funding could disappear entirely, school officials have begun discussing ways to fund buses by consolidating services.    

“What the board needs to decide, and we have a few options, is whether or not we’re going to continue to transport students, whether we’ll change the routes,” Shampain said.    

He added that eliminating bus transportation would be a drastic measure and create an undue burden on parents.    

"It would crowd our parking lot,” Shampain said. “We would have some attendance problems, more than we have now. That’s why rural districts transport.”    

Sonora Union High School District may also face changes, depending on the legislature’s decision.    

“We’ve had some preliminary conversations,” Burr said. “We’re of course going to analyze the routes, analyze the budgets, and be as efficient as we can.”
Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District, which serves an overwhelmingly rural population in southern Tuolumne County, does not charge students for bus transportation. The district’s transportation budget during the 2011-2012 school year was $468,687, of which the state provided $133,514.    

With the possibility of zero funding for 2012-2013, bus route consolidation is an option on the table.   

“We’ll have to wait for more information,” said Sheri Cochran, the district’s Administrative Assistant for Finance.
Merrill said that Calaveras Union School District may consolidate routes into a hub system, but even that seemingly simple situation may be more problematic than it sounds for many families.    

“The other thing is safety,” said Valley Springs resident Cindy Brown, who has a student at Calaveras High. “You can’t be dropping little kindergartners off and having them walk home. Or, for that matter, high school girls.”   

In the worst-case scenario — the district could find no way to fund bus transportation — it may cut other programs, according to Calaveras Union School District Superintendent Mark Campbell.    

“We would have to deplete our reserves as far down as we can, which we’re looking at doing at anyway,” Campbell said.    

He said the only other place the district can look to cut $1.3 million from its budget would be from programs for kids.    

“We’ve cut our staff as much as we can,” he said. “Now we’re talking music programs and sports programs that directly impact kids, which we’ve protected so far.”    

Campbell suggested that parents contact their state representatives and voice their concerns.        

Proponents of SB81 say it would restore funds for transportation by cutting per-pupil funding by around $40 a student. According to H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance, Brown expressed his support of SB81 in the Assembly before the vote today.