FWCS Transportation Costs Are Out of Control
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 3/6/10 @ 3:11 pm - Filed Under Uncategorized
The total transportation budget is ~$19.5 Million. With roughly 30,000 students that comes out to $650/student! That’s not only students riding the bus - that is ALL students. And 70% of that cost, or $13.7 Million is in salary and benefits for transportation employees.
Good grief.
That is absolutely out of control. Cutting that budget by merely 25% would save $5 million per year. That’s $5 million that could be transfered into the general fund (assuming the state legislature approves such transfers come next week) to eliminate teacher layoffs and reduce classroom sizes.
This district simply can’t afford to pick up every kid that lives just a few blocks away from school. Indiana guarantees every child the right to a free education but that should not include a chauffeur service to and from school paid for at taxpayer expense. The vast majority of the district’s transportation budget should be born by the riders. If you want your kid to take the bus then you have to pony up something to help pay for it.
We need to drastically reduce the bus program at FWCS, privatize it if necessary, and put the savings into areas that will improve academic achievement.
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Like I said weeks ago…What is wrong with Citilink? What is wrong with neighborhood schools where kids can walk to school?
Jeff:
I agree with you 100%, but I was told today (and I am sure that Evert Mol can probably find out if it is true) that busing costs are psid from the School District’s Transportation Fund and not from the General Fund.
From the “New Realities of Indiana School Funding - West Lafayette:”
Gadfly.
That is correct but as I alluded to in the post the state legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow transfers from one fund to another. It is likely going to pass this week although there might end up being limits on how much can be transferred.
The bill in the state legislature allows transfer of utilities and insurance costs from the capital project fund to the general fund. (the bill was in place up to this year and ran into a sunset clause). Unless they have significantly changed the legislation it will not allow transfer of money from other funds or from the CPF fund for other reasons.
Reduction of the transportation fund is easy, but it will eliminate the choice structure of FWCS. The question is.. how much are we willing to pay to have a district that will allow parents to choose which school they send their children to?
Thanks for the insight jon. FWCS should lobby to have Transportation funds transferable to the general fund. That seems like a no-brained to me. It could be a permanent 1 for 1 transfer for all I care.
And to answer your last question - I’m not willing to pay a damn dime to have school choice. If a parent wants their kid to go to a school other than their neighborhood school then they can provide the transportation themselves.
Jon,
I did a little more research because I swore the media reports said that transportation funds were being discussed. And I think the current House Bill does in fact include the transfer of transportation funds. Here’s the relevant text:
Jon Olinger;
Generally, separate Funds are designed to track specific cash receipts against required cash outlays. But with the possible exception of capital improvement funds, governments normally are free to move available money between operating funds at the sound of an “Aye” vote by the appropriate council.
Why then are the restrictions placed on School Districts’ operating funds? I suppose that only Big Brother knows for sure.
I’ve had the oppertunity to speak to a couple of teachers in the last few weeks. One told me, if a student is suspended from his bus for misconduct,
a separate bus will come to his home and take him to and from school. The other teacher explained some of the circumstances surrounding the student that was hit while crossing Fairfield Av. a few weeks back. It seems that child and his two siblings live maybe one and a half blocks from the school. The kids would not go to the corner with the crossing guard. They would cross Fairfield by themselves. The mother was told of this on numerous occasions. Now after the accident, a FWCS bus picks them up at their house and takes them one and a half blocks to school. To bad, the so called mother, who doesn’t work, couldn’t walk her kids to school or at least teach them to obey their teachers.
I sure wish the local media would get a hold of that one. The scary thing to think about is that is probably not an isolated event.
Jeff that is good news, at least in theory. I think Wendy and Mark will guard the transportation fund as tightly as they guard the racial balance fund as it is essential to fund all the programs they deem necessary. Do you see any restrictions on the use of the money they can transfer?
Gadfly,
The separate funds in a school corporation are set up by the state legislature and can only be used for items specifically listed within the enabling legislation. There is much less autonomy with a school system than with city or county government. There is very little ability to move funds. FWCS has seven separate funds. 1. The General Fund, 2. Capital Projects Fund, 3, Racial Balance Fund, 4. Transportation Fund, 5. Debt Service Fund, 6. Special Education/Preschool Fund and 7. The Ever popular Fort Wayne Museum of Art Fund.
Two of the funds are only specific to FWCS. The racial balance fund is a breakout fund from the Capital Projects Fund (this is one reason FWCS’s Capital Project Fund doesn’t cover all it needs to cover). It was originally court ordered, but now it is voluntary. Additionally, the Indiana General Assembly instituted the Museum of Art Fund. Politicians wanted to fund the Fort Wayne Museum of Art but didn’t want to stick their neck out, thus they attached it to a bill to legislation that made FWCS pass thru money from the state to the Museum of Art. It is very small in the scheme of things.
Out of curiosity,, I looked at the procedures employed in Ohio to disburse funds from the state to local school corporations. They handle everything on a formula basis, but the funds provided are unrestricted. For example, pupil transportation is considered in the formula whereby a rate is paid out per pupil for this busing reimbursement, but all school districts are limited to a maximum rate per student.
So if a school district does very little busing or is very compact, they can spend the excess reimbursement elsewhere.
I think that the Indiana legislature gets far too fine in trying to be ‘fair’ but they face lawsuits anyway . . . as we see from the case involving fast-growing school districts, who claim that their plight is not addressed, The real shame is that we do not need more funding, we need quality education for our children. You cannot get that by throwing money at the schools.
Little Turtle,
Two more FWCS students were hit last week
on Pontiac St. I didn’t hear anything in the media about it. I understand that their injuries were not serious.
Jon-
Exactly what quantifiable benefits have we seen from busing for racial balace that would convince the community to keep paying for it? Test scores of African American students have not improved by it at all. Black kids in our “racially balanced” district are passign ISTEP at about the same rate as those in Gary, which is 97% black.
If the purpose is to prevent flight to the suburbs, it has also failed to stop that. The district is losing about 450 white students per year. Black enrollment has stayed constant. Up to now the increase of Hispanics and multi racial students has kept the district enrollment level, but it has also increased the number of kids on free and reduced lunch in the same proportions.
Integration by itself doesn’t help black kids do better in school. In a few years they’ll need to come up with quotas for Hispanic students. The “balance” concept appears ludicrous but maybe you could enlighten us on their thinking.
A 19.5 million transportation budget could go a LONG way towards building a state of the art middle/high school complex in the core of the city comparable to NWACS. Close Anthis, sell the real estate. Close two or three middle schools and feed them into the new one.
Greener, less maintenance, use up some of the County owned parcels which will never have a house on them again.
It’s too bad FWCS doesn’t have better lobbyists in Indy. One would think that when a Board Member’s brother is a State Rep. we would see some forward movement. Oh well…
In the 30 years it’s been around I can’t give you an educational benefit for bussing. Evert I can’t enlighten you as to their thinking because I would have to be able to understand it myself. In my opinion I think the left thinks the purpose of public education is indoctrination. With that in mind I can see many explanations for public education policies over the past few decades.
As for school choice from a parent’s perspective, I appreciated the school choice structure within FWCS. This meant my wife and I chose which elementary school my daughters went to, (and we picked based on the academic reputation of the school and the principal). I must admit, however, I don’t know that it is worth the price the district is paying for it. As a parent I would have provided transportation for my daughters to attend the school I chose for them even if the bus was unavailable.
Jon-
So there’s no quantifiable benefit in busing for racial balance. It’s an execise in social engineering and FWCS is “celebrating diversity” and setting racial quotas at the expense of its academic reputation, not to mention a lot of expensive diesel fuel.
I’m sure there are other parents who like having a choice of schools, although for middle class parents that choice is limited to schools north of Coliseum Boulevard. So although “choice” may be slowing flight, it won’t stop it and there’s no way to quantify that either. Most parents prefer to watch this experiment from the suburbs, where their children’s education won’t be jeopardized.
Well, at least Wendy, her rubber stamps, Ian Roland, the Inskeeps and the JG are happy.
I realize that I am ancient history - but back in my day (clears throat), this is how FWCS buses “happened”.
If you lived less than one mile (as the crow flies - quoting Principal Dr. William Schroeder) - and you wanted to ride the bus - you pay for a weekly bus pass in the front school office - which my parents did - when they could afford it. It was $1.50 per week (I think - must ask my mom). Otherwise, we had to walk to school - yes - as elementary school students at Indian Village Elementary (or hitch a ride with a neighbor).
Of course back in THOSE days, there were neighborhood schools (those don’t really exist anymore, right??!!).
Crap - should have added more to that last post.
My point is this - FWCS is in the shape it is in - not because of Governor Mitch Daniels - but because of the last 25 + years of bad decision making. Folks just kept on piling the crap on, year after year.
There’s absolutely no leadership associated to my former school system and hasn’t been for a long time.
So Wendy and her friends can close Elmhurst. Heck - I say close every single school you can. That way, the ship sinks faster and the pain is a lot easier to deal with if you can rip everything apart at once.
Sad that FWCS has become another bad and embarrassing statistic (and looks like it will remain that way for years to come). But hey - the unraveling of what used to be the heart of Fort Wayne’s educational system - it’ll make for good historical reading in 30 years.
Everybody knows that FWCS Transportation is saving us alot of headaches. Do we really have time to transport our children to their various different schools? Remember, The traffic alone will DEFINITLY make you Late for work.
Why don’t we just go back in time and put them all on horseback, and say have a great day.
Bussing saves us as parents TIME ! How much is your time worth?