Board tells state to deal with bus costs

After a lengthy presentation Tuesday on what is needed to correct Hawaii’s beleaguered student transportation system, Board of Education members urged the state to move quickly to cut school bus costs to avoid further reductions in service.

“I’m feeling the pressure here,” said board member Wes Lo. “We may have to cut some routes next year (because of budget shortfalls).

I think there has to be incremental steps, weighing the costs of different methods.”

The board spent about two hours Tuesday in an informational session on student transportation, covering recommendations for next steps included in a consultant’s report on bus services.

Maryland-based Management Partnership Services conducted the study, at a cost of $109,000, and concluded that bringing down transportation costs will require a “large and complex” redesign of the Department of Education’s student transportation services branch.

Echoing the conclusions of a state audit released earlier this year, Tim Ammon of MPS told the board that Hawaii’s spending on student transportation is higher than the national norm, and that costs in recent years have risen well above anything that could be explained by inflation.

The price tag for the service reached $77 million in the 2011-12 school year, up from $29 million in the 2005-06 school year. Not including administrative or other ancillary costs, the state spends about $86,500 per bus route annually — or about $1,750 for every student rider, the MPS study estimated.

To deal with rising costs, the department has pulled funding from other programs, consolidated routes, raised fares and, for the first time this summer, cut service for about 2,300 students.

“Are the costs high? Yes, they are. The important component is figuring out why they’re high,” Ammon told the board.

Board members were particularly interested in what immediate changes could be made to bring down costs, and questioned why the department couldn’t provide key statistics on such things as daily ridership.

Ray L’Heureux, assistant superintendent of the department’s Office of School Facilities and Support Services, told the board he is working to improve data collection services, but added that figures such as ridership are not currently gathered.

For the 2014-15 school year, the department is anticipating an $8 million budget shortfall for student transportation.

About 35,000 students statewide ride school buses. The state contracts with 12 bus companies, which operate about 700 buses total.

Lawmakers will get their chance to discuss the study and the department’s next steps today, during a joint House and Senate informational briefing.