By COLIN M. STEWART By COLIN M. STEWART ADVERTISING Tribune-Herald Staff Writer Hawaii’s school system has yet to decide on an alternative to cutting bus service next year for thousands of students in order to make up a $17 million
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
Hawaii’s school system has yet to decide on an alternative to cutting bus service next year for thousands of students in order to make up a $17 million transportation budget shortfall.
On June 5, the state Department of Education will present to the Board of Education its analysis of individual bus routes with recommendations for those which should be cut, along with any other plans to cut costs, said Assistant Superintendent of School Facilities and Support Services Randy Moore.
“We’ll present specific, route-by-route recommendations (on cuts) to the board,” Moore said on Tuesday afternoon.
The process of looking at possible cuts to individual bus routes throughout the system comes after the DOE decided last month to hold off on announcing its plans of ending service for entire schools. The cuts would have affected about 38 percent of Big Island students, or 2,600, and would have ended bus service for all of East Hawaii’s intermediate and high schools except for Pahoa High and Intermediate, Ka‘u High and Pahala Elementary, Keaau High, and Keaau Middle. The cuts also would have affected elementary schools De Silva, Haaheo, Hilo Union, Holualoa, Kahakai, Kalanianaole, Kapiolani, Kaumana, Keaukaha, Kealakehe, Waiakea and Waiakea Waena.
The Department of Education had planned on sending a letter home to parents on April 13 announcing the cuts as a possible result once the state Legislature had finalized an anticipated budet reduction. But, on the evening before the memorandums were to be sent home with students, a spokeswoman said that the DOE had opted to hold off “in order to review and consider the potential impact of implementing internal restrictions for non-school level funding as well as repurposing other funds for student transportation costs.”
Legislators looked at cutting the school transportation department budget as a way of combating increasing costs in school bus contracts, as well as a lack of competition among providers of bus service.
At a Tuesday morning meeting of the Board of Education’s Finance Infrastructure Committee, Moore handed out a spreadsheet to committee members listing all of the state’s contracts for bus service, said Big Isle BOE member Brian DeLima.
“We looked at the number of bus routes for each district, and we discussed the requirements for determining what routes to be prioritized (to be cut),” DeLima said. “What it comes down to is the complex area superintendents will review each of the routes and try to make a determination what routes should be prioritized to maintain as is, in order to maximize student achievements.”
Ultimately, DeLima said, the goal is to avoid as many cuts to bus service as possible, while exploring other options for cutting costs.
“The board has advocated for a really thorough and comprehensive review of all the different line items of the budget in order to determine where there could be savings during the year to meet any budgetary shortfall,” he said. “The idea is we want to minimize the number of routes that would be required to be terminated as a result.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, board members looked at a list of 36 different cost saving measures, DeLima said.
Among them, he said, is a plan to purchase school buses and then lease them to contractors. But, he said, that is a more long-term solution that would do little to meet the DOE’s immediate problem of making up the $17 million cut to next academic year’s transportation budget.
“We’ll have to look at the cost of purchasing buses. We really want to take a look at the numbers and see how that works,” DeLima said.
He added that terminating bus routes isn’t a simple solution either.
“Under the existing contracts, there is a termination cost. … That has to be part of the factoring. You don’t get a dollar-for-dollar reduction for terminating a particular route,” he said.
Whatever the BOE decides, DeLima said, the goal will be to have as little impact on academics as possible.
“The bottom line to what we are trying to do is to ensure student achievement. … If that’s the goal, you need to take steps to get students to school,” he said.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
