The cost of operating school buses in Elgin School District U46 is increasing because of harsh winters and an increase in the number of special-education students, according to a report on the district’s transportation operations submitted to the board of education.
The bus fleet, which covers some 5 million miles a year, also is delivering more passengers on time, according to the report.
Chief Operating Officer Jeff King acknowledged that there apparently was “a large jump” in the state-estimated cost per mile between the school year that began in 2012 and the one that began in 2013. He said official financial statistics are not yet available for the 2014-2015 school year.
After dropping from about $4.85 in 2010 to about $4.50 in 2011, the state-calculated cost per mile went up to about $4.95 in 2012 and then all the way up to more than $5.75 two years ago.
King said the actual increase is was not as huge as that looks because of key factors, such as how state officials calculate the cost of busing homeless students. Between 2012 and 2013, he said, the district began hiring an outside company to transport homeless students who now either live outside the district or go to school in another district.
Under state law, if a student has been attending in and living in one school district, then becomes homeless but spends nights in a different district, the two districts must split the responsibility for driving that student back to the original school. King said that is done by having each school district provide the transportation in one direction. For example, if a homeless student has been attending school in Elgin and then ends up spending nights in Algonquin, in Community Unit School District 300, that student would ride a U46 bus in one direction and ride a District 300 bus in the other direction.
King said the state mileage-cost figure included the money paid to that outside contractor for homeless transportation but did not include the miles that contractor drives, thus creating a misleadingly high cost per mile for the whole operation.
“If you leave that out, our actual cost per mile that year was $4.86, or about the same level it was in the year before,” King said.
He said that $4.86 per mile is slightly less than the average cost of $4.99 per mile being paid by other American school districts that have 25,000 to 75,000 students, according to a study by a consortium of school districts.
What actually have been pushing up costs per mile, King said, are bad weather and special education. Subzero cold and snow caused the schools to be closed for three “snow days” in 2013-2014, with bus employees being paid for both the snow days and for the three class days added at the end of the school year to make up for the snow days. Individual Education Plans for special-education students also required the district to hire 12 more driver assistants to ride along on special-ed buses.
Partly because of these changes, salary costs went up about $720,000 and employee benefit costs up about $741,000 between 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.
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Meanwhile, King’s report said, the buses have been getting students to school on time better than ever. The on-time arrival rate went from 87 percent in 2010-2013 to 95 percent the following year and 97 percent last school year.
He said the definition of “on time” varies from school to school and “is determined by mutual agreement between the transportation department and the school site.” He said “on time” typically is defined as arriving at school between five and 15 minutes before the first bell rings.