The Freeport School District eliminated one of their bus routes this year. The district’s transportation director Dallas Pieper says it used to take around 60 kids to school every day.
“It was due to the budget," she said, "We just couldn't afford it."
Freeport’s transportation budget has been cut nearly 40% over the past two years. At the same time, costs keep going up, so something had to give.
“Trying to figure out how we can make that money last with the smallest amount of impact," said Pieper, "but knowing we're going to have to impact people. That has really been a stressor these last couple weeks and I'm sure it will be a stressor for the next couple years.”
The cost of school transportation
School transportation costs in Illinois went up 60% over the past five fiscal years of available state data. Last year, Illinois schools spent over $1.8 billion on it.
Emily Warnecke says, prior to the pandemic, school transportation costs would increase around 2% every year. Over the past few years, however, yearly increases have jumped to 12-13%.
Warnecke works in government relations with the Illinois Association of School Administrators and Illinois Association of School Business Officials, and has been sounding the alarm with the state legislature about school transportation costs.
She says there are a few factors contributing to the cost surge. Many school districts contract transportation to private services like First Student, and Warnecke says contracted costs have spiked.
"They're dealing with a lot of the same pressures districts that do [transportation] services in-house are dealing with when it comes to labor," she said. "You have to increase the hourly rate because you're trying to attract people to the position. A lot of the contractors and districts provide health insurance, and health insurance costs are rising pretty rapidly."
State transportation funding is split into two sections: what the state calls "regular transportation" — the big yellow school buses — and "special education transportation" —think vans picking up students who use wheelchairs.
Armir Doka is director of business and finance at the DeKalb School District.
“Special education transportation costs," he said, "are actually the ones that have increased way more than the regular ones."
That's true. Statewide, special education transportation costs are up 75% in that same five-year timespan.
"You're not putting 60 kids on a [special education] bus," said Warnecke. "In some cases you're just putting one, maybe two students on because they're being sent to a private facility or they have very specialized services they need or an aide on the bus."
But, overall, Warnecke says the state is still trying to figure out why these costs have increased so much, and if the situation is similar for other states.
She says this year’s state budget implementation bill directed the Illinois State Board of Education to study it.
Transportation more expensive for local schools
Every August, school districts send the state claims saying, "Here’s what we spent on transportation last year," and then the state reimburses them. In recent years, those reimbursements haven’t kept pace with rising costs.
The state used to reimburse almost all special ed transportation costs, but now it’s around 55%. Reimbursements for regular transportation have fallen as well. The proration level is about 68%. Both are the lowest reimbursement rates since at least 2012.
“I think," said Warnecke, "we were like $800 million short of getting full funding for those claims when we started this."
In a district like Freeport, Pieper says it adds up fast.
“It's about a million dollars in reimbursements," she said, "that we're not getting, that we should be getting a year."
Kelly Mandrell is the superintendent of the Polo Community School District, a small, rural district in Ogle County.
"In our northwest region," she said, "our area lost $5 million in reimbursement for transportation last year."
When state reimbursements fall, local districts have to absorb the cost. Transportation is a "mandated categorical" cost. Not busing students isn't an option; they have to get to school, and the district has to find the money for it.
It's particularly difficult for districts like Freeport dealing with multimillion-dollar budget deficits.
Warnecke calls this a crisis and says the state legislature understands districts' concerns. This year, the state budget allocated an additional $30 million for school transportation, which helps but isn't enough to boost reimbursement rates.
She says it's why it's important for the state board to study the root causes, because even if they get more money for reimbursements, if they don’t solve the underlying cost problem, they could end up in this same position again in a few years.
Rising fuel prices escalate costs for schools
The record-breaking price of diesel has compounded these problems. The vast majority of school buses run on diesel and many districts have dozens of buses driving hundreds of miles per day.
Districts like Freeport buy fuel in bulk, and Pieper says their tanker delivery in August cost nearly twice as much as back in April, with no sign of slowing down.
“It was $37,000," said Pieper, "versus right around usually $22-23,000."
Kelly Mandrell in Polo says there’s a lot out of her control as a superintendent, but the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz feels especially out of her control.
“That's hard," she said, "when you're trying to plan a budget."
Some districts, like the West Aurora School District, have added electric buses to their fleet, in part to help insulate them from volatile fuel prices. Last year, the district got 27 EV buses — one of the largest electric fleets in the region.
Angie Smith is West Aurora's associate superintendent of operations. She says a series of incentives from ComEd and the Environmental Protection Agency helped them secure the electric buses.
"You might have gotten more," she said, "but because the EPA funding just disappeared under the Trump administration, that really slowed that momentum."
So, even as diesel prices skyrocket and more school districts might be interested in switching some vehicles to EVs, it's less financially feasible.
Smith says it's paid off for their district so far.
"We estimated," she said, "conservatively, about $125-130,000 in fuel savings."
Nationwide, around 2% of school buses are electric.
The challenge of hiring drivers
Another big challenge for schools is hiring enough bus drivers, particularly in small, rural districts like Polo. When they’re desperate for drivers, they offer signing bonuses and incentives — which increases the cost of labor.
It’s so hard that superintendent Kelly Mandrell had to convince a few teachers to sign up and drive routes every morning — and she drives a pre-K route before school pretty often too.
“I have my Disney music going for them, and we just have a good time," she said. "I have to laugh because most of them, when I do that route, when they see me in the hall, they're like, 'You were my van driver!'”
Schools have to cut back
In the meantime, school districts have to stretch their dollars as far as possible. Some districts like Freeport are eliminating and consolidating bus routes. Pieper says they have to find any area they can to cut back transportation costs.
"When I told our superintendent we were going to have to look at athletics, the look on her face," she said. "But I'm like, we don't have a choice. I have to get kids to and from school, and we don't have enough diesel money to do everything we did last year."
Fortunately, she says they sat down and figured a way to arrange sports games to make travel as efficient as they can. But again, she says, something's got to give. They just have less money. The district also had to reduce field trips this year because it’s just too expensive to make the drive.
