This Sun Sailor Transportion article was written by Jeff Priess. (RAS Executive Director of Business Services) Now that is quite a title... May need 2 busn cards or some small print. (hahaha)
Now here is the link to Monday's 5:30 PM Busn Mtg Packet. And here is the link to the 6 PM Board Work Session Packet. Finally, here is the link to the Transportation costs analysis. Approx $10,250,357 in reduced Expense and Capital over 4 years !!!! I may have to make some time to stop by and listen in at ~7:15 PM Monday night.... This could be a very interesting mtg. And they will even top it off with a STEAM update at ~8 PM.
So my questions are:
- Should our bus drivers be applying for jobs at First Student or will the Board find some way to justify keeping Transportation in house?
- Where are the additional savings from selling off the bus garage property? (and maybe ESC) Or did I miss them?
- Was anyone surprised that the RAS transportation costs were historically more than the state avg? Remember that I used to have 6 buses passing in front of my house each day. Thankfully that has been reduced to 4 now. (ie RSI and the normal 3)
- Finally, has anyone heard if RSI and STEAM are going to share a bus route or if gain one more bus next year?
6 comments:
At least one large district saved a whole lot of money buying software to optimize their bus routes. I don't know if that made them competitive with a private service or not (I doubt it), but it did save a lot.
J. Ewing
I think a lot of our higher Transportation costs were self imposed when we were giving Students / Families the choice to take a bus to multiple schools. (ie Community Schools, RSI, AP, IB, etc) It was a popular and good system, but expensive...
This meant transfer buses and multiple full district routes. These of course weren't very full and covered lots of miles. This is being phased out after many years of lively debate.
Search G2A for "Transportation" or "Bus" and you will find multiple discussions.
I'm here live (7:55 pm) at the Work Session. They are looking at saving $1.7M annually for FY 2012-13. (Priess's article misstates this as the total expenditure.) No vote tonight obviously, probably part of formal adoption of budget later.
Some informational picketing present.
It's 9:05, finally started Integration Funding. Another round of promises to close the Achievement Gap. Alphabet soup this year includes DEAC, CIY, FAIR, WMEP, IDEA, STEM (but not STEAM!), and of course, IB.
Thanks for the real time reporting. I ended up running out to the farm (Canby, MN) for a friend's dad's funeral. Can't wait to see your summary.
It looks like bus outsourcing is a go, already starting to spend the proceeds in next budget. And clearly they need the money for start-up costs of STEAM. Formal vote could be March 5 to avoid Listening Time at next March 19 meeting.
Some other curious items in the Integration plan, like more Art and STEM but not STEAM in the left behind schools. Regardless, nobody will be fired if the achievement gap again defies the latest solutions. How many years in a row now?
I do support the outsourcing however. Bus union making the wrong points I think, detailing all the non-driving duties they perform here and there. True or not, it makes it sound like many sit between runs on the clock.
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