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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > May > 28 > Entry
High School busing: Here we go again
A few months ago,I was speaking to Mayor Rhine McLin and Commissioner Nan Whaley at a joint city commission-school board meeting and when the issue of high school busing came up.
They went out of their way to say that the deal that saved high school busing this year — $2 million raised primarily from the city, county and RTA — was very unlikely to continue and that the school board would need to find another way to fund busing next year.
Well, the pressure is on to find a solution.
As with last year, the school board says it cannot afford high school busing. Without the district’s RTA contract, kids would have to pay out of their own pockets to get to school, sending thousands more kids through downtown on RTA buses rather than riding special RTA routes designed to pick kids up and take them directly to school.
This is a scenario that last year the city, school district and downtown business simply could not stomach. That’s how the compromise solution ultimate was forged — to avoid that reality. But school board President Yvonne Isaacs said the district has no takers so far when it has asked for support to keep the deal in place next year.
Here’s the longer version of the story I wrote about this for today’s paper:
A five-year financial forecast approved by the city school board Tuesday assumes there will be no high school busing after June 30.
“If I would put it in the forecast, we couldn’t afford it,” Treasurer Stan Lucas said. “I couldn’t certify this forecast.”
The district cut high school busing last year after its 15.17-mill levy was defeated but the service was revived after community concerns were raised about truancy and potential problems with large numbers of kids congregating downtown for transfers on regular bus routes.
In the end, Montgomery County, the city of Dayton and the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority shared the $2 million cost of restoring busing for 5,600 public and charter high school students.
Board President Yvonne Isaacs said Tuesday, May 27, those groups will be asked about helping with busing costs again next year but has no firm commitments.
“We cannot afford it and we are appealing to the community for help,” Isaacs said. “We’re talking to anybody we can. We want to find a solution.”
The district projects that it will finish the school year on June 30 while carrying over just a slim $1.7 million to 2008-09, or less than 1 percent of its spending over the past 12 months. Just three years ago, the district carried over $45 million from the prior year, but much of that money was spent to close budget shortfalls following the levy defeat in 2007. Lucas said a 10 percent cash reserve is ideal and less than 5 percent is unusual for most businesses and organizations.
The district overspent its revenue this year, but only by a narrow $27,000 on a core budget of $171.4 million. Lucas said Dayton benefitted from Gov. Ted Strickland’s push for additional poverty aid to school districts, which brought an extra $4.8 million this year. Dayton spent about 78 percent of its budget on salaries and benefits, 14 percent on purchased services and 4 percent on supplies.
Looking forward, the forecast projects revenue to grow slightly over the next five years to about $181 million in 2012 for the core budget unless a levy is passed. Spending is projected to grow to about $185 million by 2012.
An additional $50 million in state aid is diverted to support 7,500 students attending charters and using vouchers for private schools.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By lurker
May 29, 2008 7:56 AM | Link to this
Do the kids pay anything to ride the RTA busses to school? When I was in high school in Toledo, TARTA (the city bus system) had bus routes for high school kids, and we paid to ride each day. The charge was less than regular fare, but I’d guess still helped defray the cost to the school board for contracting with TARTA for these routes. note : at that time, Toledo Public Schools owned NO school busses! We all went to neighborhood schools, and the board apparently worked with TARTA to provide transportation for those of us who needed or wanted it. In elementary school, you had to live a certain distance from the school to ride a bus, and our parents purchased tokens to pay for our transportation.
By Davidss2
May 29, 2008 7:44 AM | Link to this
Charterschoolhater is right. The county “hid” the direct subsidy of the DPS by paying for another program with the $500,000 of county money so DPS could shuffle that money to pay for busing. Bobby is right about the location of school buildings should have been considered assuming high fuel costs. The impact of and prediction of higher petroleum has been existent for years—it’s not new info.
By charterschoolhater
May 28, 2008 10:42 PM | Link to this
Here is another comment. Why does the whole county through the sales tax have to pay to bus Dayton’s children? The sales tax is supposed to supplement the RTA budget. I say if they were not subsidizing Dayton’s high school busing, then maybe they would not have to cut routes that benefit everyone. Take the subsidy to Dayton and pay for some of the routes that RTA has cut in recent years. After all the routes that were cut served all citizens and not just the Dayton school board. It is time the school board faces the music and does more with less. 1 administrator per department and 1 per school building. Put the money on your deficit. Scott, why do you not report on all the money that DPS wastes in it’s duplicity of administration positions? You give them a pass too much of the time. Check out how the lettering schools do it. You after all have a stake in that district as well.
By chartecshoolhter
May 28, 2008 10:35 PM | Link to this
Here we go again. The cost of high school busing is just another case where subcontracting out school busing does not work. I call upon all Montgomery county citizens who live in communities other than Dayton to tell the county commission NO to further subsidy of Dayton busing. If Dayton can’t pay the contractor(RTA) on it’s own. Those who live outside the city should not have to pay for it either. I live in the City and I don’t want to pay for RTA to transport. County and city revenues need to be used for other things. I do not want to pay to bus Dayton’s high school children. Dayton has it’s own transportation department. Let them transport their own high school students just like every other school district in the county. Mack and Isaacs suckered someone on this one.
By Oldprof
May 28, 2008 9:38 PM | Link to this
Forget the past. We now are in the era of prohibitive energy costs. It’s unfortunate that the Charter School experiment-by-amateurs drained students from the district; otherwise, the district could have located schools within walking distance of almost all students, and thus eliminated the need for busing. Taxpayers and parents, please remember that John Husted is the one who put the schools in this position, and turn him away when he tries for Ohio Senate.
By bobby
May 28, 2008 4:30 PM | Link to this
Perhaps the former superintendant and school board should have considered the cost of busing when selecting locations for schools. I don’t recall any busing at Colonel White[prior to the 1970’s].The school was surrounded by rooftops. The decision to move Colonel White/Thurgood Marshall to it’s current location is another example of the lack of cost/ benefit analysis by this crew. Put schools in the neighborhoods where the students live and let them walk!
By Davidss2
May 28, 2008 2:43 PM | Link to this
If the county spends more of taxpayers’ money to subsidize the city schools, it’s time to move out. The county government has no right to be subsidizing a particular school system.
By Mary
May 28, 2008 1:30 PM | Link to this
And, here I go again. Find out how much the district will continue to spend to bus their sports teams all over the state and elsewhere. It is amazing what can be afforded and what cannot be afforded when it comes to education funds.