The state says it hopes to know by early June which school bus routes will likely have to be cut in the coming school year to cover a $16 million shortfall for student transportation.
Over the next several weeks, department officials will provide input on which routes to cut or save, based on such factors as need and neighborhood walkability.
The Department of Education is also scrambling to find money elsewhere that can be shifted to student transportation. But officials say it’s unlikely the shortfall will be covered with funding from other programs.
“We’re down to bare bones,” said Randy Moore, assistant superintendent of facilities and support services. “We don’t have enough money to maintain the level of service that we have heretofore provided.”
Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi told a Board of Education committee Tuesday that a route-by-route analysis will be conducted.
“It can’t be done with a broad brush,” she said.
Lawmakers included $25 million for student transportation in the supplemental budget bill for next fiscal year, $16 million shy of what the DOE says it needs to preserve general-education school bus services.
About 39,000 general-education students statewide catch a school bus on one of 959 routes. Plus, mandated curb-to-curb service is provided free to about 4,000 special-education students.
The DOE said spending $25 million on student transportation would actually cost about $33 million because of contract termination costs, lost fares and the cost of buying city bus passes for low-income students.
At the BOE’s committee meeting Tuesday, board members generally supported the plan to seek input on bus routes and sympathized with the DOE’s fiscal constraints.
But BOE member Jim Williams bristled at the prospect of cutting bus routes.
“I think this is a classic case of the adults can’t figure it out, therefore the students are going to suffer,” he said.
