In a move cheered by local school districts, the state Education Department ruled last week that school districts would no longer be required to provide a bus seat for every eligible student in their schools.
“The department encourages school districts to have an available seat only for those students who are expected to ride the bus,” the education department said in a statement.
Education officials said the ruling was issued following a review of state law by state Education Department Commissioner David Steiner.
Local school superintendents have repeatedly complained that districts had to pay for empty bus seat because of an interpretation of state law that required districts to provide a seat for every student enrolled in their schools – regardless of actual ridership
“This is a major win for us,” Herrick’s Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth said at a board of education meeting last Thursday. “I’m glad we finally have a commissioner with enough guts to do this.”
Bierwirth said he will work out a plan with the school district’s director of transportation John Conklin and Assistant Superintendent for Business Helen Costigan, to schedule new bus routes that will help save the district money. He said he expects to present a plan to the board of education by June.
“We’ve worked out hypothetical situations in the past anticipating this change,” Bierwirth said, adding he estimated the district could eliminate two busses and save $30,000.
“We’re going to base the amount of seats needed by looking at our highest student ridership from last year,” Bierwirth said. “For example if at our highest we had 28 students riding a particular bus last year – and now we only average 15 riding that same bus this year – we shouldn’t be required to have sixty seats available, when thirty seats would make more sense.”
Bierwirth said he has been working with state Senator Jack Martins (R-Mineola) and Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck) to help put “political pressure” on the state to get the law changed, or least strike a compromise.
Great Neck Superintendent of Schools Tom Dolan said the law has been an issue for years, and expects a significant savings to the district.
“I agree with the New York State Education Department that this issue has been ‘inefficiently organized’, and I believe this will give us some latitude towards more efficient routes,” Dolan told Blank Slate Media. “We have already begun to look into this and hope to realize some savings to the district as next year. I’m hoping we can save in the six- digit range.”
Dolan credits Martins and Schimel with helping to make these changes in the state education department’s interpretation of the law.
“I think the new interpretation has been driven by Sen. Martins and Assemblywoman Schimel asking really good questions,” Dolan said. “By joining hands across party ranks they made it clear how much of an issue this was.”
Martins and Schimel are both sponsoring a bill titled “The School Bus Mandate Relief Act” in the state Legislature that would enable a school district to reduce the number of bus seats if it has a rider count in each of the preceding three years that shows a pattern of underuse.
Schimel said she introduced a similar bill three years ago that “went nowhere” at the time.
At last year’s New York State School Boards Association annual business meeting, delegates passed a resolution to permitting school districts to adjust bus seat capacity based on actual patterns of ridership. They also called on Steiner to clarify the law, and to provide a ruling to determine whether districts must provide a seat for every eligible student, or to every student who actually needs transportation.
Martins and Schimel both said they will continue to push the bill into law, despite Steiner’s interpretation.
“In an effort to ease the burden on our taxpayers, we are seeking ways to provide mandate relief for school districts,” Martins said in a statement. “One of the areas where it makes sense is to transportation. School districts have to provide seats on a bus for students who aren’t using them, and this is an unnecessary expense that we can eliminate. School districts can achieve savings by not having to provide unnecessary transportation.”
“I’d still like it as a law,” Schimel said. “The point of the bill is to give the law more clarity. I want the clarity to be a statute.”
Schimel said she and Martins are working on adding amendments to their bill which will make it “more flexible and transparent.”
Schimel said the bill will obligate school boards to post changes in their student bus transportation policies online. She credited the school boards for their advocacy efforts on the issue.
