From the Muncie Star-Press:
Now that the Muncie Community School bus referendum has failed, all eyes are on the waiver.
A law that was passed in 2012 requiring Indiana school districts to give a three-year notice if they plan to end transportation services, allows districts to apply for a waiver to eliminate the waiting period.
Muncie Community Schools applied for the waiver with the Indiana Department of Education earlier this year, and was told by the IDOE that it would delay action until after the referendum.
MCS was asking for $3.325 million in 2014 for transportation-related expenses, including the $2.65 million M&M Bus Company contract for daily buses, as well as late activity buses, extra-curricular buses and the district’s “in-house” fleet of 10 buses. The referendum failed by just under 54 percent of those who went to the polls.
That leaves the district — and the community — waiting on word about the waiver.
MCS board member Debbie Feick said there has been some confusion over what exactly the waiver means.
It is not a request for permission to end transportation services, she said. Districts can legally end transportation services for most of its students.
The waiver, she said, is “about how we notify people that we are ending transportation.”
She said she understands the reasoning behind the three-year notice.
“In this way families have adequate time to plan, the district can explore alternatives, and the children will not suffer,” she said.
Because of the cuts to the transportation fund next year, however, MCS officials argue they literally cannot afford to wait three years.
MCS, in its petition for the waiver, stated that it provided transportation services for 3,555 students daily, “consisting of 2,960 general education students, 400 special education students, 120 high ability students and 75 vocational education students, on 108 routes covering 1,675 miles.”
In the waiver, school officials wrote that “because of revenue losses to the MCS transportation fund caused by the imposition of real property tax limits,” “the provision of the transportation services to students under the program ... will no longer be feasible and must be terminated effective at the end of the 2013-14 school year.”
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See the full article here:
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013311100043
