SPOTSY SCHOOLS MAY CUT STUDENT ACTIVITY BUSES
Spotsylvania County students will be forced to find ways to get home from after-school functions if activity buses are eliminated to help make up a $3.6 million shortfall.
Eliminating activity buses is one option and officials have about a month to find an alternative.
The school division faces a $1.2 million state revenue shortfall because of enrollment falling below projections, and a $2.4 million budget reduction request from the Board of Supervisors.
Last night, the School Board voted for a number of cuts to take effect immediately, including freezing vacant positions, in-state and out-of-state travel and most of employees’ tuition reimbursement.
Superintendent Jerry Hill said he expects the state to continue to struggle.
“I wish I could say that the $3.6 million we’re looking at tonight would solve the budget problem, but unfortunately I don’t think it will,” he said at the School Board meeting.
The elimination of activity buses, which take students home from after-school remediation or sports-related activities, may be reversed, depending on alternative measures officials plan to discuss at a Nov. 7 work session.
Overtime pay for drivers and fuel comprise the majority of the $174,000 cut for buses. The board voted 4–1 to cut the buses, with Amanda Blalock casting the dissenting vote. Members Ray Lora and Don Holmes were not at the meeting.
“I feel that’s not what the community wants at large,” Blalock said.
Bus driver Patricia Stanley said students already have complained.
“I have a football player on the bus, and he says, ‘Well, because of you, I’m not going to be able to play football to get a scholarship for college,’” she told the board.
Board member Linda Wieland said she was concerned about how buses would limit student access to after-school remediation.
“I think we really need to be realistic about this,” she said. “We need a creative solution to handle this.”
The board also approved a resolution addressing the shortfall and requesting the Board of Supervisors to return funds it doesn’t use.
>>> BUDGET CUTS
All but the elimination of activity buses takes effect immediately.
$1.2 million state revenue shortfall due to lower enrollment numbers than projected including:
Freeze roughly 18 vacant positions: $867,000
Hold back 10 percent of school-based allocations: $276,000
$2.4 million local cuts requested by the Board of Supervisors:
Replacing higher-paid retirees with lower-paid new employees: $913,000
Elimination of activity buses: $174,000
Reduction of non-compensation department budgets: $851,000
Freeze in-state and out-of-state travel on a case-by-case basis: $100,000
Eliminate food at meetings: $162,000
Freeze employee tuition reimbursement except for the University of Mary Washington Special
Education program: $175,000
Eliminate SOL incentive recognition funds provided to schools $25,000
ACTIVITY BUS CUTS WORRYING PARENTS, KIDS IN SPOTSY
SOME SAY THEY'LL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
The Free Lance–Star
Oct. 22, 2008
The Free Lance–Star
Oct. 22, 2008
Virtually every minute of Mickel Plaud Jr.’s weekday is planned, down to how long he showers after school.
When classes end, the Spotsylvania High School senior heads to football practice until 5:30 p.m.
He gets home at 6:15, showers for 10 minutes, and at 7 p.m. he reports to work at The Melting Pot restaurant.
That all of this runs smoothly hinges on something that more than 300 students rely on weekly: activity buses.
“I have no way of getting around,” said Mickel, 17, who’s also a JROTC officer.
One of the cuts to close a $3.6 million deficit in the school division’s budget eliminates the activity buses, which take students home from after-school remediation and activities.
After Nov. 17, the deadline officials set to stop the buses, students will be forced to find other ways home.
School Board members will discuss the issue at a Nov. 7 work session and may reverse the decision if they find alternative cuts.
STUDENTS AND DRIVERS
Originally from Yonkers, N.Y., Mickel has yet to get a driver’s license because of complications with transfer credits from his old school and enrolling in a driver’s education course in Spotsylvania.
His family shares two cars: one that his father drives to work as a contractor in Quantico, run a catering business and shuttle Mickel’s 8-year-old brother to soccer practice; the other belongs to his mother, who works nights.
His father gets home just in time to drive Mickel to work.
Bus driver Pat Wheeler said students who live in rural areas will be especially hard hit.
“It’s not as easy for them to catch a ride with somebody, because of different directions and everything,” Wheeler said.
Even with activity buses, many students still walk a few miles home from their stops, she said.
Students aren’t the only ones who will be affected. The cut, which will save the school division an estimated $159,843, also takes money from bus drivers.
Driver pay makes up 41.7 percent of the total cost to run the buses. Without them, bus driver Pat Stanley said she would lose $5,000.
“It’s going to hit me in the pocketbook,” said Stanley, who makes about $19,500 a year in contracted hours. Anything beyond that, like the activity buses, is extra money.
Other drivers have it worse, she said. This is her 32nd year as a bus driver, and she earns more per hour than several of her colleagues.
ALTERNATIVES
Board member Amanda Blalock voted against cutting activity buses and said she has received e– mails from parents protesting the change.
She can’t support the decision without researching options, she said.
“There’s no question we’ve got to cut,” Blalock said. “I think we can find it in other places.”
Superintendent Jerry Hill said further cuts expected at the state level have expedited the process. “It’s really more like trying to make sure we can do things this year that protect our employees,” he said.
Vacant positions have been frozen. There are no talks of pay cuts at this time.
Officials are looking at extending the school day for students who use activity buses until later in the evening, when parents can pick them up.
But Mickel said that wouldn’t work for him and his friends, many of whom play sports and have jobs.
Students will not go to practice if they have no way of getting to work, he said. His friends, meanwhile, live too far to give him rides, and buying a car would be costly.
“Money’s kind of tight,” Mickel said. “We’re hoping and praying that the buses stay on.”
>>> IN THE REGION
Spotsylvania’s activity buses have been around since the 1960s.
The school system had budgeted $243,884 to run the buses this year, some of which has been spent since the buses have been running since school started. Cutting the buses beginning Nov. 17 would save the remaining $159,843.
Other school divisions, also struggling with budgets, are not planning to cut activity buses.
In Stafford County, activity buses have run for three years, said Spokeswoman Valerie Cottongim.
Many students who use the buses are too young to drive or can’t afford to provide their own transportation.
They’re “able to participate in some programs they may not otherwise be able to,” Cottongim
said.
Last year, the buses cost $66,718 to run: 47.7 percent for driver salary, 52.3 percent for fuel and
maintenance.
In Fredericksburg, transportation director Bob Burch said the bus fleet is so small it hasn’t been an issue.
“If times get tough enough for the state, if times get tough enough in the city, I would imagine we would consider cutting out anything,” he said.
SPOTSY ACTIVITY BUSES CONTINUE
SCHOOL BOARD HAD PLANNED TO STOP BUSES NOV. 17 TO SAVE MONEY, BUT CHANGED DECISION
The Free Lance–Star
Nov. 8, 2008
The Free Lance–Star
Nov. 8, 2008
Activity buses at Spotsylvania County schools are safe for now.
At a work session yesterday, the School Board voted to keep the buses, which take students home from after-school activities, running at least until the end of the school year.
“It’s just one of those things where we really need to take the time to do this,” said Tony Jackson, executive director of K–12 curriculum and instruction.
Jackson had presented the board with a proposal to create an after-hours study hall in lieu of providing the buses. Parents then would have picked up their children after work.
The cut would have saved more than $100,000 had the buses stopped Nov. 17, the original date set by the board.
But principals and parents of student athletes raised issues school officials had not anticipated. Principals wondered if it would be safe to have just one teacher in charge of several students.
“When they’re concerned, I’m concerned, because they’re on the front lines,” said Superintendent Jerry Hill, adding that officials should meet with more principals and parents about the issue.
Board Chairman Gil Seaux said the school division will use money from frozen positions to cover the costs of the buses.
School officials also mulled over other items to eliminate in preparation for cuts by the state and county this fiscal year.
Though there are still several months left in the school year, they’ve already begun planning for what’s to come in 2010, which they believe will begin with at least a $1.2 million deficit.
“We think 2010 is going to be the real steep hill-climb,” Hill told the board. “That’s why we’re trying to help ourselves.”
School Board members will have to prioritize the cuts later this month.
Staff members’ suggestions included increasing class sizes for secondary schools by one student, offering eligible employees early retirement, and eliminating more positions through attrition.
The School Board meets again Nov. 24.