School Law
Transportation of Students in New Jersey
A. SFRA Incentive for Efficiency
The School Funding Reform Act of 2008 introduced an incentive factor to multiply the number of both public pupils and nonpublic pupils for transportation aid.1 The incentive factor, determined by the governor, is a multiple of the regular vehicle capacity utilization in a district. The vehicle utilization capacity “is calculated by dividing the total number of eligible regular public, nonpublic and special education students without special needs who received transportation services by the vehicle capacity.”2 Eligible students include all remote students, those more than two or two and a half miles from their school, and all non-remote students whose routes to school would be hazardous to walk due to heavy traffic. Vehicle capacity is 90% of the total number of seats available. Students who receive non-hazardous route courtesy busing services are not included in the regular vehicle capacity utilization.3 If “districts stagger bell times or widen the arrival/departure time windows, buses can perform multiple runs and achieve improved efficiency.” 4 Districts with schools starting at different times will have the highest incentive factor as they will use the same seats two, three or four times a day for different students.
B. Courtesy Busing
The state would be well advised to change the definition of remote transportation to “kindergarten, all bused; first to six, half mile; and seven through twelve, one mile.”5 Currently, remote transportation is two and a half miles for high school students and two mile for all other students. The state has not changed its definition of remote transportation since World War II. It is outrageous that a first grader today should be expected to walk up to two miles to school and that the district that opts to transport the child is punished for operating inefficient courtesy busing.
The last state comprehensive report on student transportation found that courtesy busing is common, as “36% of districts surveyed reported to have a formal or informal policy on eligibility which differs from the state policy.”6 Out of a “total of 215,216 regular pupils, the average proportion of less-than-remote pupils transported was 30%.”7 Also, aid in lieu of payment, paid when expense is above a set threshold, is common. “A total of 23% of the eligible regular pupils statewide are nonpublic pupils. Of these 88,837 nonpublic pupils 34,410 or over 38% receive payment in lieu of transportation.”8
C. Outsourcing of Transportation
Districts are advised of the longstanding bidding problems involved in New Jersey outsourcing of student transportation. “Conditions which foster and permit collusive bidding and related abused are prevalent throughout New Jersey’s school transportation system. . . . [B]us company owners routinely refuse to submit bids in district where others are already operating.” 9 Several company and district officials have been convicted. “In 14 towns school busing contract “schemes included kickbacks, bid rigging and fraud. The plots swindled millions of tax dollars from state taxpayers, as well as local taxpayers.”10 Local districts are advised to provide if not all, some of the transportation services, in-house. “Venders may submit more reasonably priced bids if districts or regions posses some measure of publicly owned transportation.”11 Competition has reduced much of this collusion in many markets today.
D. Transportation Tiers
Originally, most students started school and ended school at the same time. Each seat on every bus was used only once a day. Districts have found significant savings by opening and closing schools in tiers, most preferably, four tiers. For example, Toms River high schools start at 7:15, intermediary schools at 7:50, half the elementary schools at 8:40 and the other half at 9:20. Each route takes about 45 minutes so each bus seat is occupied four times every morning and every afternoon. Fewer buses are necessary when setting as near to equal amount of routes in each of the four tiers as possible.
In an average size district, companies figure that it costs $60,000 for them to run a bus.12 They look toward charging around $75,000 making about $15,000 in profit. When busing companies bid by the route, they charge about $30,000 each, as they can run buses twice each morning and afternoon, combining routes in different towns consecutively. District that tier their school opening times so that the buses stay in the same geographic area will see significant reductions in cost. In a four-tiered system, each route costs about $18,750. Bidding in a four tiered system is in package rather than by route, so that every bid is for all four tiers covering four routes. Bus companies save on fuel by remaining in the same district. As competition is fierce among the companies in many of today’s market, savings are passed on to the district.
The ideal transportation system has capacity of running its own buses, preferable on a 50-50 split between transportation in-house and outsourced. The district in-house busing sets a benchmark for contractor competitive bidding. If the unions get too greedy, then more contracts go out to the private companies. If the companies get too greedy, then more routes are done in-house.