BREAKING: NJ Senate Passes Historic Lakewood Busing Bill

school bus lkwd tlsJUST IN: The New Jersey State Senate just took a major step in the legislative process to provide state busing for all of Lakewood’s children.

The bill allows for a consortium of private schools to receive all the aid-in-lieu money for mandated students. The private schools will then use this money toward busing for all private school students.

This allows the Township Committee to work hand in hand with the public school district to provide transportation for all public school students.

The bill enables busing to be handled by separate entities, and eases the pressure of the unmanageable busing situation by a single entity.

[TLS]

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11 COMMENTS

  1. So does this does this mean that yet again when next year non mandated students are put ahead of the mandated ones and I again don’t get busing, I also won’t be getting aid in lieu?

  2. The bill isn’t the answer to the Nonpublic Schools transportation demands. The bill prohibits the consortium from providing nonmandated/courtesy busing for 3 years. It also requires the State Monitor and Commissioner to establish a 5 member oversight committee, with only one member being from a nonpublic school served by the consortium.

  3. Lakewood currently has one of the most cost efficient bussing systems in the state. The 2017 budget appropriates $10,893,560 for remote transportation for regular education students. If you divide this by the 19,160 regular education public and nonpublic students the district is mandated to transport, the district is spending $569 per pupil.

    Under this bill, the district must turn over to the consortium $884 per nonpublic pupil. There are 16,997 nonpublic pupils receiving remote transportation. Hence, the district must turn over $15,025,348 (16,997 x $884) to the consortium. Assuming the remaining 2,191 public school students will cost $569 each, the total bill will be $1,246,675 (public) + $15,025,348 (nonpublic) = $16,272,027.

    Even though the Office of Legislative Services claims the State will contribute $2.4 million (which is not clear in the wording of the law), the bill will certainly increase local taxes and most likely increase an already unconstitutional deprivation in the schools.

  4. Lakewood currently has one of the most cost efficient bussing systems in the state. The 2017 budget appropriates $10,893,560 for remote transportation for regular education students. If you divide this by the 19,160 regular education public and nonpublic students the district is mandated to transport, the district is spending $569 per pupil.

    Under this bill, the district must turn over to the consortium $884 per nonpublic pupil. There are 16,997 nonpublic pupils receiving remote transportation. Hence, the district must turn over $15,025,348 (16,997 x $884) to the consortium. Assuming the remaining 2,191 public school students will cost $569 each, the total bill will be $1,246,675 (public) + $15,025,348 (nonpublic) = $16,272,027.

    The Office of Legislative Services claims the State will contribute $2.4 million. This is not true. Lakewood already is supposed to get $11,509,939 in state transportation aid but only gets $4.2 million. So now instead of supposed to be getting $11.5 million under the SFRA, next year we will be supposed to get $13.7 million. There is no guarantee that the SFRA will be run next year with full state transportation aid. It has been frozen for years. Either way, the bill will certainly increase local taxes and most likely increase an already unconstitutional deprivation in the schools.

  5. Thank you Aaron L. for clarifying how this will really affect us. Seems like the only realized solution is for the State Senate to address the real issue… CHANGE THE FORMULA THAT SHORTCHANGES ALL STUDENTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE IN LAKEWOOD! THE STATE SHOULD START SENDING ADEQUATE FUNDING BASED ON THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF CHILDREN ATTENDING SCHOOL. All this latest ploy accomplishes will be RAISING the LOCAL taxes.

  6. This past year the bus situation was like musical chairs where a courtesy student got a seat and not all mandatory students were provided seats. Is something being done to ensure that ALL mandatory students receive their bussing from all schools BEFORE courtesy students are added on? To make a mandatory eligible kid walk 3.5 miles each way to school so a courtesy kid can get a seat on the bus is morally wrong.

  7. A Lang. You are not correct on this. The cost for mandated busing will increase tremendously once courtesy busing is eliminated. The courtesy students who live closer to school are cheaper to bus . Once these students are not included ,the average pet student cost will be over 700 and possibly as high as 750 to 800. Under State law anything over 72o is covered by the State so the real cost to,local taxpayers is probably close to zero as compared to if the district was busing only mandated students.

  8. I agree with #1. Smaller schools won’t benefit from this at all- they won’t be able to pay for their longer, more sparsely populated routes even with the combined aid in lieu. Only large schools will benefit.

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