School Bus Service Under Pressure as Budgets Get Tighter : Education: In Ventura County, costly transportation programs compete with classroom necessities for fewer dollars, making them attractive targets for the ax.

More students are riding the bus to school in Thousand Oaks this year since the ticket price was lowered. But the transportation program is still not paying for itself, officials say.

In neighboring Simi Valley, several aging buses remain out of service since failing safety inspections last month. The cost of repairing them has forced school officials to confront the possibility of charging parents for busing students or even stopping bus service altogether.

As symbolic of education as an apple for the teacher, yellow school buses increasingly are viewed as targets of the budget ax by Ventura County educational officials grappling with ever-tightening finances.

“There really is no other place to go, so if the budget outlook stays bleak, I can imagine (busing) becoming a more attractive target,” said Howard Hamilton, associate superintendent of the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District.

This week, the board of the Conejo Valley Unified School District will review the status of its busing program, the first examination since the cost of bus passes was lowered in a last-ditch preservation effort begun this fall.

More than a year ago, the district became the first in Ventura County to charge parents for ferrying students. The experiment cut the district’s transportation costs, but not enough students signed up to wipe out the deficit.

This fall, the district slashed the yearly price for round-trip transportation for one student from $450 to $360. The number of children riding the bus since has jumped from 774 to 1,101, officials said. The district needs about 1,300 riders to break even.

Increased ridership has reduced the drain on the General Fund from $130,000 last year to an estimated $46,600 this year, said Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart. When busing was free to parents, 2,000 riders cost the district $334,000 to transport, Hart said.

“Even with the subsidy, parent-pay saved us over $200,000 last year,” Hart said.

However, some board members have said they want busing to be self-sufficient or eliminated. The board is scheduled to discuss the issue at its meeting Thursday night, but no action is expected.

“My inclination is the thing should break even, but I haven’t drawn a hard line,” said board member Bill Henry. “This makes it tighter. However, $46,000 is a lot of money. Forty-six thousand dollars is still a teacher.”

Henry said he would consider mitigating factors in deciding whether he could accept a $46,000 cost to the district. Without a bus fleet, for example, the price for transporting athletes to out-of-town games would rise by 68%, Hart said. That cost would be borne by parents of the athletes.

In addition, the district would have to spend $27,000 leasing buses for student field trips or eliminate off-campus learning experiences, Hart said.

Whatever happens, the district will have to bus special-education students to school. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that public schools are legally obligated to bus special-education students.

Justifying any expense for busing becomes harder when transportation competes for dollars with classroom supplies and educational programs, said Doug Crosse, board member of the Simi Valley Unified School District.

“Is it a good target? No,” Crosse said. “It’s a target we’re looking at because that’s the way the chips are falling.”

A preliminary estimate indicates it would cost at least $75,000 to repair or replace four Simi Valley buses that were removed from service after a safety inspection by the California Highway Patrol, Supt. Mary Beth Wolford said.

The most serious problem with the 30-year-old buses is rusting structural supports, a CHP inspection supervisor said. To fix them, the district must peel back the metal skins of the buses to re-weld the frames--an expensive operation for the high-mileage, older buses, officials said.

District officials are investigating a range of options, including leasing or buying used buses, contracting with a company to provide the service, charging parents, or eliminating home-to-school transportation, Wolford said.

Cutting bus transportation would inconvenience many families, said board President Judy Barry. About 10% of the district’s 18,000 students ride the bus to school, officials said.

“To cut it, we’re going to make some people very unhappy,” Barry said. “If that is the decision, we would certainly make every effort we could to accommodate car-pooling arrangements.”