The Board of Education deferred a decision on raising school bus fares last night, instead sending the proposal back to committee. BOE defers decision on
school bus fare hikeBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comEarlier this year, the Support Services committee approved doubling the fare to 50 cents to offset a projected $2.8 million deficit.
The increase would have meant an additional $1 million in bus fees collected annually.
The committee will also consider whether there should be separate transportation budgets for regular-education and special-education students.
Leatrice Gomes, president of the Hawaii School Bus Contractors Association, testified that the deficit is the result of providing transportation to special-education students.
It costs roughly $300 a year to transport each regular-education student and $3,333 a year to transport a special-education student.
While many special-education students pay to ride the regular school bus, others must ride smaller wheelchair-accessible buses, which require both a bus driver and an aide, thereby increasing the cost.
However, because the state is required to provide free curb-to-curb transportation for certain special-needs students to comply with the Felix consent decree,
"Those are costs we have to incur anyway," pointed out board member Garrett Toguchi.
Gomes argued that the state should then provide free bus service to all students. "Don't segregate and discriminate against the mainstream students."
The bus fare increase proposal met with public opposition at statewide hearings in May and June, according to Al Suga, the assistant superintendent for business services. Fifty-three people testified against it, and only one person testified for it.
There are 17,000 students statewide who pay to ride the bus and another 11,700 special-needs students who do not pay.
State Board of Education
