Southwest Missouri Schools Look to Trim Busing Expenses (MO)

July 7, 2010

Fewer routes, staggered school start times and less money to replace buses and pay drivers.

A steep drop in state funding for school transportation — up to 50 percent — has school officials in southwest Missouri looking for ways to trim services and save money.<br /&gt ;

"For most school districts, it amounted to a cut of a little less than half of what they expected to receive next year," said Debra Clink, school transportation consultant for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. "It was a significant cut and the largest cut the transportation appropriation has ever received."

A series of state funding cuts were made throughout the school year. In late June, as districts were finalizing 2010-11 budgets, Gov. Jay Nixon slashed another $70 million from busing.

"They’re just scrambling now," Clink said. "I don’t think anyone anticipated how steep this would be."

Steve Chodes, chief financial officer for Springfield Public Schools, said the district will lose about $1 million in state funding for busing next year. The transportation budget for 2009-10 was $7.3 million.

"We had anticipated a $150,000 reduction," he said.

The district already proposed spending less money for fuel, bus replacement, radio services and temporary labor next year. But with the last round of state cuts, harder choices were required.

At a meeting Tuesday, the school board approved a budget that pulled money out of the operating budget — killing a proposed 0.5 percent pay raise for employees — to avoid a likely immediate loss of jobs and services in transportation.

Chodes said the move still resulted in a loss of about $268,000 to busing. It’s not yet known how all the cuts will be made.

Superintendent Norm Ridder and the school board plan to start talking this month about how to trim busing — possibly reducing staffing, services or both.

"Transportation is going to have a serious look," Ridder said. "We need to involve the public in that discussion."

There was talk of creating committees to look at ways to cut expenses in various areas, including busing. At the meeting, staggered start times and changing routes were mentioned.

Chodes said the discussions have to explore the fallout of those options.

"The obvious advantage is dollar savings," Chodes said. "There are safety concerns there. You’ve got the little kids potentially having to walk farther. On the three-tier start times, you’ve got the impact on the families."

Nixa Superintendent Stephen Kleinsmith said the school board opted to make up for the loss of transportation money by chopping other parts of the budget.

The Christian County school district made $1.2 million in cuts by freezing salaries and hiring, and suspending textbook purchases for the year.

"When we made our cuts, our reductions, we just did it once," he said of the major reductions. "We knew there was going to be additional cuts. We didn’t want to take our staff and our community on a roller coaster."

State education officials said transportation may have been an easy target for cuts because it’s one of the biggest ticket items — other than the funding formula, which doles out a basic level of support to all public school districts — funded with general state revenue.

Clink said no matter how much districts planned, the dept h of the state cut likely caught many off-guard. She has fielded calls from concerned school officials but few have had enough time to make decisions.

"It’s such a recent cut. There are a significant number of options schools have" for reducing staff and services, she said. "Some may have enough fund balance to weather this and ride this out."

Michael Tucker, superintendent of the Logan-Rogersville district, said the school board approved the 2010-11 budget the same day the final round of state funding cuts were announced.

The district had already reduced routes, drivers and staggered pick-up times.

Changing bus eligibility likely won’t help as only one school, the Upper Elementary, is close to a residential area. "We’re still providing front-door pickups," he said.

The district will explore the possibility of eliminating busing for preschool students and establishing central pickup and dropoff points, which would require families to get students to and from that location.

The cut "is roughly about 50 percent of our transportation amount," he said. "We’ve cut back quite a bit but we’re going to have to do more."