Representatives from the Indiana Department of
Education will be in town Monday to hear public comments about a waiver that
could eliminate school buses for the 2014-15 school year.
The hearing is set for 5 p.m. Monday at
Northside Middle School.
On Nov. 5, a referendum was voted down that
would have increased property taxes to raise the $3.3 million needed to run the
school buses next year.
The district had applied for a waiver, which
is required by Indiana school corporations that do not want to give the
required three-year notice to end transportation services.
If the waiver is denied, the district must
come up with funds to continue services until the end of that three-year
period.
MCS Chief Financial Officer has said that
because there is no surplus of funds, the money needed to run the buses for the
2014-15 school year will mostly likely come from “people.”
This is the first public hearing on this type
of waiver, according to IDOE officials. MCS was the first district to apply for
the waiver. Westfield-Washingtion school district provided its three-year
notice in September.
In the petition for 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.”
It also stated that MCS was not able to give a
three-year notice of the termination of bus transportation because the statute
did not exist in 2011, which is when the district would have had to give notice
to eliminate transportation for the 2014-15 school year.
If the waiver is approved, it will mean an end to bus service
for thousands of students.
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