School Districts Reach Busing Cost Agreement

Antelope Valley school districts reached tentative agreement Friday on a new formula for dividing the costs of their shared school busing agency, easing a dispute that threatened to scuttle the 9-year-old cooperative.

The joint operation, the Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency, is expected to cost about $7.7 million this year. It serves eight of the 10 school districts in the Antelope Valley, carrying about 17,000 students a day.

Several districts, including the two largest in the region, the Antelope Valley Union High School District and the Palmdale School District, looked into the possibility of starting their own school bus services, which might have saddled the remaining smaller districts with costs too high to pay.

John Farr, head of the co-op, predicted Friday’s agreement will end that talk.

A district’s share of the costs now is based on the numbers of bus trips and miles driven carrying its students. The new formula bases the costs on both passenger and so-called deadhead miles, the time spent on individual bus runs, and agency overhead.

Under the new formula, the Antelope Valley Union High School District’s projected bill for this year should decline 9.2% to $2.1 million. Palmdale also gets a small cut of 1.3% to nearly $1.7 million. But the Lancaster School District, the valley’s third largest, gets an 18.1% increase to nearly $1.7 million.

The new cost-allocation formula, adopted by a 7-0 vote of district representatives with one absence, must receive final approval next week.