Muncie School District To Stop Offering Transportation Services
Muncie Schools will discontinue bus services because of budget problems. (Photo Credit: Kyle Stokes/StateImpact Indiana)
Representatives of the local school district in Muncie have voted to stop bus transportation for area students in 2018 – the soonest state law will allow.
But school board members say they don’t actually want to stop school buses from running. The board says it’s sending a message to the Statehouse to fix a state law that’s hurting some Hoosier schools.
A unanimous vote to end school bus transportation in Muncie came with no boos, insults, or impassioned pleas from the public Tuesday night, because as Muncie Community Schools Superintendent Steven Baule puts it, everyone knows the problem lies with the state.
“It was really a law set up to solve a problem that wasn’t a problem,” Baule says.
Baule is talking about protected taxes, a law passed in 2013 by state lawmakers to make sure no school with outstanding debt defaults on its bond payments. Money must be put into the debt services portion of a school’s budget first, and the rest parceled out to remaining portions. That’s left Muncie with an almost 90 percent loss in its transportation fund.
The protected taxes law is one reason district’s are struggling to fund transportation, in addition to the property tax caps that were added to the state constitution a few years ago. But after the law went into place, the General Assembly created waivers for districts hardest hit.
How does a district receives the waiver?
“You’re impacted by 10 percent or more. In other words, you’re going to lose 10 percent or more of your funding, specifically for transportation,” says Dennis Costerison, Executive Director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials.
But the news from Muncie shows even with these waivers, districts are struggling to provide services like transportation that have typically been provided.
The waivers expire next year, so Muncie and other affected school districts will no longer have this reprieve unless the General Assembly takes action.
Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, says he would like to see the legislature take up the issue and modify the protected tax law.
“This is a bigger deal than we thought it would be, and I think the initial ideas here were well intended, but you know, this happens sometimes.” Lanane said. “There are unintended consequences and we shouldn’t be afraid to address it and I hope we will next year.”
Lanane says it will likely take a rally of school districts around the state for lawmakers to take up the issue of protected taxes in future sessions. Because Indiana law says a school district must give parents three years’ notice before stopping bus service, Muncie has until 2018 to convince other districts to make the same statement.
