South County School District Hikes Busing Fees : Education: Saddleback Valley Unified says $365 annual rate is necessary to recover costs, but one angry parent vows she and others will boycott.

Despite the pleas of upset parents, the Saddleback Valley Unified School District has more than doubled the busing fee charged families to send their children to school, making what one trustee termed the “best choices out of all bad choices.”

The busing fee increase, which raises the $150 annual rate to $365 per student next school year, was just part of a $2.3-million reduction plan approved Tuesday by the Board of Education to help cope with an estimated $8-million budget shortfall.

One upset parent said she wouldn’t be surprised if the district plan to raise revenue ends up backfiring.

“People are going to boycott your buses,” Joyce Stovall told the board. “I have talked to so many parents who say, ‘I’m not going to pay it.’ ”

Board members said continued state education cuts are forcing them to take drastic measures, which could be even worse next year if the state does not come up with new ways to fund public education. In the last nine years, the district has cut almost $16 million from its budget.

“The system may have to come to its knees before the people of this state change their philosophy--the ‘don’t tax me’ philosophy,” Trustee Dore J. Gilbert said. “We want good education, but we’re not willing to pay for it.”

About 400 people crowded into the 275-seat boardroom during the lengthy meeting, many of them to thank the Board of Education for tentatively saving music programs, librarians and guidance counselors, but many more upset about cuts to school athletics and the busing fee increase.

Since the 1991-92 school year, the district has operated a “parent pay home-to-school” program that has covered part of the district’s annual transportation costs.

With the increase, the district expects to raise about $600,000 and recover all of its basic transportation costs, rather than using money from the general fund that might otherwise be used in the classroom, officials said.

But the plan didn’t sit well with many parents.

“I understand there is no money, but also there are many families who do not have any money either,” Portola Hills resident Carl Misso said. The fee increase “becomes a quick-fix for this budget problem.”

Some parents also said the fee increase is “discriminatory” because some students must be bused to schools because of district boundary configurations, which were also altered by the board during the meeting.

During the 1991-92 school year, the district’s old $150 busing fee raised $618,000 from 4,300 riders, according to a business services report.

State law allows school districts to charge home-to-school transportation fees to cover operating costs. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court ruled that home-to-school busing is not an “integral part of the educational process” and is not protected under a state constitutional provision guaranteeing a free public education for all children.

State law does hold, however, that free or reduced bus fares be offered to children of indigent parents.

In other efforts to help balance next year’s $109-million budget, the district board cut such things as the coaching stipends for nine freshman/sophomore-level sports programs and eliminated at least two positions.

Some of the most eloquent pleas during the meeting to save such things as the sports programs came from the students who will be most affected.

“I beg you to not make the cuts,” El Toro High School senior Robyn Lowes said. “The only people you will be hurting are your kids--your future.”

The board will take final action on its overall budget June 30. At that time, board members will likely draw about $5.6 million from the district’s $8.1-million reserve to cover the rest of the projected shortfall.

“We’re trying to hold this system together for one more year,” board member R. Kent Hann said.

BOUNDARY LINES CHANGED

Saddleback Valley Unified sets new lines to ease future crowding. B6

OTHERS DISCUSS BUSING

Two school districts review their transportation policies. B9