Funding cuts, and reinstatements, in California. Recent and potential changes to the school funding process in Colorado, Alabama and Delaware. Advertising debates in New Jersey and Florida. Funding cuts in Illinois. Eliminating the potential for service fees in Indiana. The confluence of these events raises a fundamental question that anyone involved in pupil transportation question must consider: How do we pay for everything we are supposed to do?
School districts and transportation departments have been forced to do more with less for at least the last four, and in most cases many more, years. Well worn efficiency techniques such as bell time changes and alternative routing strategies were generally adequate to accommodate funding cuts in the initial years. It must be recognized that initial efforts to “cut the fat” have continued down to the marrow.
Efforts to “efficiency” our way around structural funding problems or long-term funding reductions are both ineffective and unsustainable. Service levels will decline, fleets will get older, and paradoxically costs are likely to increase as transportation managers continue to try to accommodate increasing educational demands with decreasing resources. If this trajectory is correct, it is an indication that as an industry we must make greater efforts to demonstrate the value of transportation.
The amount of funding provided to any specific function is ultimately a statement by policy makers about priorities. This was never clearer than when I watched a wise superintendent explain to his school board that his transportation department, “Could do anything they wanted but not everything they wanted.”
This is likely to be an increasingly common refrain as districts continue to make difficult choices about what services to offer and how to provide them. While we are never absolved from our responsibility to use the resources provided efficiently, it must also be understood that over time the amount of service provided must be reconciled with the funding provided.
As the 50 state funding formulas and the various allowances for supplemental revenue demonstrate, there is clearly no national consensus on how to value or support transportation. The coming funding debates will require all stakeholders to communicate with a clear voice and a clear vision as to why transportation should be a priority and the implications on service delivery if it is not.
Tim Ammon is a consultant with Management Partnership Services, Inc., in Rockville, Md. He has extensive experience in system implementation and use and evaluating school bus routes and schedules and has analyzed all aspects of transportation and fleet management operations. Ammon also assists in the specification and implementation of transportation software applications.
