Pinnacle Editorial: School district should check other options for busing

Hollister School District officials are taking the right approach by planning to be without a budget for bus service in 2012-13, but that shouldn’t stop leaders from examining other alternatives to continue providing transportation.
Hollister is in the midst of a long-term fiscal recovery from a series of deficit-riddled budgets that led to state oversight on all major financial decisions. Officials understand the need to make drastic cuts in order to maintain a responsible budget – they have gotten used to it because they have had no other choice for the past two years. There is no other acceptable path than continuing the cost-cutting trend, as reflected in the district’s recent agreement with its classified unit after eight months without a contract.
Local school officials and others throughout the state were thrown into a political pinball machine in recent weeks, as state leaders haggled over the possibility of eliminating transportation funding for the current school year. The bottom line is that the state has not restored funding for next school year, so the Hollister district had no other choice than to plan being without it.
The $170,000 loss from the state this year is 54 percent of the district’s total transportation budget for general students, while it is required to continue providing the service for special education students. The district has a $41 million “unrestricted” budget. The $313,000 in transportation expenses is less than 1 percent of that amount, so there is a reasonable argument that the funding might be worth it.
That figure, however, also amounts to a couple of teachers’ jobs, and Hollister cannot afford to continue losing educators while increasing class sizes. Next year’s state budget hasn’t been determined, so trustees still must plan to face the likelihood of absorbing the same loss in 2012-13.
It does not, though, preclude Hollister school trustees and administrators from taking a serious look at other alternatives. Providing transportation is a key element to academic success, and eliminating the service, as Assemblyman Luis Alejo pointed out, would have an adverse impact on lower-income students.
Ideas for alternatives might include partnering with the county transit system, contracting with San Benito High School and its self-operated bus program, or exploring whether private-contractor candidates such as Tiffany Ford – the Hollister district’s current operator – can lower the price for service. If those ideas fall flat, perhaps the district also could examine the possibility of starting its own program, which seems to work well at the high school.
Regardless, Hollister school officials eventually will have no other choice than to either find an alternative route for transportation or eliminate a service there is no money left to fund.