Home-to-school transport funds restored—for now
$248 million cut instead to be taken from revenue limits; future remains cloudy
Published: February 27, 2012
Thanks to some nimble advocacy by CSBA and other members of the education community, funding that helps get students to school has been spared from the chopping block, at least through the 2013-14 school year. (See CSBA President Jill Wynns’ open letter to association members on this topic.)
Responding to concerns about a $248 million midyear cut to the state’s Home to School Transportation Program, triggered in December by insufficient state revenues, CSBA and other members of the Education Coalition helped move Senate Bill 81 to replace the transportation cut with an across-the-board reduction in revenue limits in the same amount. The revenue limit cut, while undesirable, was generally deemed to be more equitable. The Legislature swiftly passed the bill, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it.
The transportation funding cut would have impacted small, rural districts disproportionately. A CSBA analysis of transportation costs revealed that many smaller districts must spend as much as thousands per student just to get students living in remote areas to class.
After CSBA helped make the news media aware of how their local districts would be impacted, news outlets around the state took it from there, prompting strong public support for protecting transportation funding.
“Home-to-school transportation is about the worst place to cut because it hits districts so differently,” CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Dennis Meyers told the Los Angeles Times, calling the cuts “a killer” for many districts that rely on busing to get remote students to school.
Charging families for transportation, or relying on parents’ ability to drive their students to school, are not viable options for most of these districts, Meyers explained.
After signing SB 81, Brown revised his 2012-13 budget proposal to fund home-to-school transportation through the next school year as part of his weighted student formula proposal, which is contingent upon voter approval of his revenue initiative. Brown hopes to put “The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012” on the November ballot.