Closer — But School District Still Can’t Decide On School Bus Cuts
With just six weeks until kids head back to class, Hawaii school board members still can’t decide how to plug a $17 million hole in the school bus budget.
That’s largely because the Hawaii Department of Education still hasn’t identified the impacts to the programs that would receive less money if the district shifts funds to cover the student transportation shortfall.
“What I see being presented is half of the equation,” Board of Education member Jim Williams said. “I’m concerned about how that supports good decision-making.”
After another round of revisions, the Board of Education voted Tuesday to approve the department’s latest recommendation. But the members only did so on the condition that a few provisos are met, such as reducing the disproportionate impact on Neighbor Island students who ride the bus.
The board passed the plan after receiving news that an extra $8 million in federal money could be used to lessen the impact of the proposed cuts.
State Rep. Mark Takai, who worked to secure the funding, said the money is in the bank and the board should utilize it to address the immediate shortfall in the bus budget.
“Children cannot learn without being in school and many students will not go to school without bus service,” he told the board.
Education Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi seemed hesitant to use all $8 million to shore up the bus budget deficit. She said the district has been advised that there will be a significant drop in Impact Aid money next year and would just have to figure out how to fill that hole instead.
Impact Aid is a program that provides funding for a portion of the educational costs of federally connected students. Takai described it as an in-lieu-of-tax program.
“It is the federal government paying its tax bill to local school districts as a result of the presence of a military installation,” he said.
Hawaii uses the bulk of its Impact Aid money to pay for substitute teachers, Matayoshi said.
The district faces a student transportation shortfall due to escalating costs for bus services. State lawmakers said they gave the department less money than it wanted because school officials have yet to rein in skyrocketing costs for bus contracts.
Civil Beat has reported in its Taken for a Ride investigative series that school bus transportation costs have more than doubled in recent years.
The department’s latest proposal calls for a mix of consolidating and cutting dozens of bus routes to save $7 million, and making up the remaining $10 million by pulling funds from other sources.
Eliminating the need for 109 of the 513 buses that operated this past school year will result in discontinued service to an estimated 3,849 students, or roughly 9 percent of total general education riders, Randy Moore, assistant superintendent, told the board’s Finance and Infrastructure Committee.
The board ultimately decided to ask the department to reexamine all the Oahu and Neighbor Island routes scheduled for reduction. The list of proposed routes to be cut is expected soon, DOE spokeswoman Sandy Goya said.
Last meeting, the department had proposed a plan that would have impacted some 7,500 students. The board said that was too many and directed the department to bring the number down. In February, school officials were saying 17,000 kids would be scrambling to find other transportation.
Despite the lower number, board members were still not satisfied. They noted concerns over the disproportionate impact on students who ride the bus to school on Neighbor Islands, where fewer alternatives exist.
“I tend to think that the percentage on Maui is significantly higher,” Board member Brian De Lima said, noting 18 bus routes to be eliminated on the Valley Isle.
He introduced an amendment during the committee meeting directing the department to allocate an additional $1 million of federal Impact Aid money to further reduce the proposed bus cuts. The committee passed it unanimously, but it was upped to $1.5 million during the full board meeting that afternoon.
Amy Kunz, the department’s chief financial officer, said some of the $8 million that Takai urged the district to use is already part of the equation. She said the department learned about this money June 7, two days after the board’s last meeting.
The department is using almost $3 million of that money in its current recommendation to reduce the need to cut more bus routes, Kunz said during the committee meeting.
Board member Kim Gennaula added a proviso of her own, which the committee passed, calling on the department to include in its revised recommendation an alternate option to each route that will be canceled. For instance, a drop-off point and another route that could be offered to parents.
Board Chair Don Horner said the department should also talk to Maui County transportation officials about forming a possible “alliance” with the district, but noted push-back from bus contractors when the district has tried to partner with nonprofits in the past.
“Let’s trim our pencils one more time … and get the number down a bit more,” he said.
