Saugus school district reduces number of buses

SAUGUS – The Saugus Schools Transportation Sub-Committee met Thursday night to discuss the district’s new busing policy, and while around 15 parents showed up for the meeting, committee member Arthur Grabowski said no recommendations could be made.The district’s new transportation policy will provide busing only to grades K through six at two miles or more, which is the state minimum. Last year the district used four buses at $50,000 each and parents had the option of paying a $360 fee for extra busing, which still didn’t cover the full cost. This year, however, there will be no extra transportation provided and there will be only two buses.Grabowski said meeting members and parents were at an impasse during Thursday’s meeting and decided to go directly before the School Committee to discuss ideas on how to provide extra busing.”There are some ideas floating around,” said Grabowski. “If we do anything, it’s probably going to mean a much greater user fee than $360.”School Committee Chair Wendy Reed said this fee could soar up to as much as $1,000, something she said parents probably couldn’t pay.”The problem our financial director told us was the additional fee would be astronomical,” said Reed. “If parents would be willing to pay that we would be able to subsidize transportation.”The reduction in busing stems from the town level-funding the schools’ budget this year. While the district was given the same budget as last year, costs increase by $1.2 million from the previous year due to contractual obligations.Superintendent Richard Langlois introduced a three-tiered reduction plan to cut $1.2 million from the school’s budget, but the passing of the one-time tax assessment gave the schools an additional $700,000. Busing, however, was at the very top of the list of cuts. According to the plan, the new transportation policy will save the schools $80,000.”If we got $1.2 we wouldn’t have had to make any cuts,” said Grabowski. “But we only got $700,000. The first two cuts that were least consequential were busing and athletic user fees.”The School Committee has yet to vote on the final budget for the upcoming year, but Reed said with all the cuts being made, it’s unlikely any extra funding could be freed up.”We’re going to get the final budget on Thursday,” said Reed. “If we’re cutting all this stuff, I don’t see how we can come up with additional money. I would hate to cut into classrooms and instruction to accommodate transportation. Our focus was to keep instruction in place.”