Township asks county to take busing question off Nov. 7 ballot
By John Tredrea
In the wake of the Hopewell Valley school board’s recent decision to discontinue busing an estimated 800 students next year, Hopewell Township Mayor Vanessa Sandom asked the board Monday night to help set up a Valleywide task force on school busing.
Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education President Kim Newport said the board was more than willing to discuss the issue with the municipalities.
Pennington Mayor James Benton and Pennington Borough Councilman Tony Persichilli backed Mayor Sandom in their own statements to the board.
The Hopewell Township Committee already had decided to put a nonbinding referendum question on the ballot of the November general election, asking voters if they would be willing to pay for the nonmandated hazardous busing the school board has said it is planning to discontinue next year.
But, at a special meeting held Wednesday, the committee voted 3-0 to adopt a resolution rescinding the Aug. 21 resolution that authorized the referendum. The new resolution directs the township clerk to tell county officials not to place the question on the Nov. 7 ballot.
In an Aug. 17 letter to the Valley’s three mayors, school board President Kim Newport said: "In its early budget planning for 2007-2008, the board has decided to discontinue all remaining busing that is not mandated by state law. This will increase the responsibility of local municipalities to help assure that no student is placed in a hazardous situation, and the school district and the municipal governments are now just beginning the dialogue on how best to accomplish this objective. The board hopes to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the three governing bodies to plan this transfer of responsibility."
About possible costs for each town if the municipalities agreed to assume the costs Board Secretary John Nemeth said Wednesday: "We are calculating this information for each municipality. We estimated the total cost at approximately $405,500 (811 at $500 each), but we have not calculated the number of students in each community."
Already discontinued this year has been nonmandated courtesy busing (i.e., nonhazardous busing) for about 200 students in Brandon Farms and Penn View Heights. This change continued to spark vehement parent protest at Monday night’s school board meeting.
Mayor Sandom said the township has yet to receive sufficient information on the matter of shifting the responsibility for school busing to the municipalities for the township to be able discuss the issue in a meaningful way.
Ms. Newport replied that the information should be forthcoming within days.
Mayor Benton and Councilman Persichilli echoed Mayor Sandom’s call for a task force.
"Our Borough Council members are very concerned about this issue," Mayor Benton said. "I’m asking for an honest, robust dialogue, to review the safety of our children and pedestrians."
If the board follows through on what it says it wants to do for next year, no elementary student who lives within two miles of school and no secondary student (grades six-12) who lives within two and a half miles of school would be bused. This means that, if next year’s enrollment were the same as this year’s, an estimated 811 students who now are entitled to busing no longer would get it, school district spokeswoman JoAnn Meyer said. This would be in addition to the 200- plus who were taken off the bus this year.
The difference between the groups is that the estimated 811 students would have to walk what school officials consider a hazardous route if they go to school on foot.
School officials say a primary reason they want to transfer the responsibility for these so-called "nonmandated hazardous busing" students is state law (S-1701), which went into effect two years ago. Before this law went into effect, the busing costs the school district wants to transfer to the towns were not included in the budget cap calculations used to determine by what percentage a school district can legally increase its annual budget over that of the preceding year. Those busing costs thus were "outside the cap" before S-1701 brought them "inside the cap."
School officials have said this change, in addition to other cost pressures such as the continuing rapid rise of state and federal mandated special education expenses, are what is driving the district to seek to transfer the responsibility for nonmandated hazardous busing to the municipalities.
Next year, the district will have to continue providing busing to elementary students who live more than two miles from school and secondary students who live more than two and a half miles away. This is known as mandated busing i.e. the state mandates that the school district must provide it.
Ms. Meyer said the discontinuance of nonmandated hazardous busing to the estimated 811 students would save the district an estimated $405,500 next year. She said, of those 811 students, an estimated 449 would attend Central High School or Timberlane Middle School, which are adjacent to one another on Pennington-Titusville Road just west of Route 31.
Among the students who would no longer get busing from the district to those two schools are Pennington students, who would have to cross Route 31 at West Delaware Avenue. That intersection is signalized, but it is extremely congested and active during the hours students would have to cross it on foot unless Pennington pays for the busing or they get driven to school. Mayor Benton noted Monday night that two pedestrians have been killed in motor vehicle accidents at that intersection.
In addition to the estimated 449 high school and middle school students earmarked for loss of busing from the school district next year, an estimated 174 students from Bear Tavern Elementary would lose it, along with 56 from Hopewell Elementary, 75 from Stony Brook Elementary and 57 from Toll Gate Grammar, Ms. Meyer said. All figures are estimates.
Ms. Meyer added that an analysis by school transportation officials has determined that, of the 811 students, 603 could walk to school if safety improvements including sidewalks, bicycle paths and crossing guards were added to the streets and roads they would use to walk to school.
"The remaining 208 students of the 811 would have to be bused to school by someone," Ms. Meyer said.
She estimated the annual cost of busing those students at $104,000. This means not busing the 603 students who could walk if safety improvements were added would save $301,500 per year, she said, noting that the cost of busing "goes up every year."
Addressing the concerns over safety at Monday’s meeting, Ms. Newport said, "Let me assure the residents of Hopewell Valley that the Board of Education and the administration of this school district have always set student safety as a fundamental priority and would never do anything to put the students in this district in harm’s way. "

