There is understandable frustration across Lakewood right now over the dramatic increase in the cost of busing for non-mandated students. Families who were expecting to pay $385 per child are now being told the cost will be $945, an additional $560 per child. For a family with several children, that can quickly become thousands of dollars.

People have every right to be upset about such a large, unexpected expense.

But before we direct that anger at Lakewood Township, I think we need to look at the entire picture, including something that seems to be getting lost in the conversation:

Lakewood Township has been helping pay for this busing for approximately ten years.

Non-mandated students are children who live within the state’s distance limits, generally within two miles of an elementary school or 2.5 miles of a high school. Under New Jersey law, these children are not automatically entitled to taxpayer-funded transportation.

Yet for years, thousands of Lakewood families have still been able to put those children on buses at a heavily subsidized price.

That didn’t happen for free.

LSTA has to pay bus companies to operate routes. Those companies have to purchase or finance buses, hire drivers, buy fuel, maintain and repair the buses, carry insurance, keep spare buses available, and pay dispatchers, mechanics and other employees.

The mandated students have government transportation funding attached to them. The non-mandated students do not have that same entitlement.

And this is where Lakewood Township stepped in.

For years, the Township contributed millions of dollars toward keeping transportation affordable for Lakewood’s non-mandated children. According to LSTA and Mayor Ray Coles, the Township contribution most recently amounted to approximately $2.7 million per year.

That was a tremendous benefit to Lakewood families.

It allowed parents to purchase transportation for $385 per child even though the actual cost of providing a seat is considerably higher. In fact, when LSTA recently discussed children who receive no transportation funding at all, it listed the full seat cost at $1,177 plus a $95 processing fee.

So consider what parents were receiving for $385.

Someone else was paying a substantial portion of the bill.

Part of that assistance came from the way LSTA combines and coordinates routes. But a major piece was the millions of dollars Lakewood Township was contributing to subsidize non-mandated transportation.

Now the Township says it can no longer provide that $2.7 million.

According to Mayor Coles, Lakewood was hit with the loss of millions of dollars in state assistance at the same time that the federal government denied New Jersey’s FEMA request that could have reimbursed approximately $6.5 million of the $8 million Lakewood spent dealing with last winter’s storms.

Whether we agree with every decision the Township makes is a separate discussion. Residents should always ask questions about spending and hold government accountable.

But there’s something strange about getting angry at the Township for stopping a benefit that it voluntarily helped provide us for approximately ten years.

Perhaps the first response should actually be:

Thank you.

Thank you for the millions of dollars Lakewood Township contributed over the years.

Thank you for helping thousands of families get their children safely to and from school.

Thank you for making something affordable that the Township was not required to subsidize in the first place.

If somebody helped pay your bill for ten years and eventually told you they could no longer afford to do it, you would certainly be disappointed. You might even be desperate to find another solution.

But would your first reaction be anger at the person who helped you for the previous ten years?

Probably not.

There is also another reality that needs to be acknowledged.

At $385 per non-mandated student, it is difficult to see how LSTA could provide a completely separate transportation system for those children without outside funding. A school bus, driver, insurance, fuel, maintenance and administration cost far more than $385 multiplied by the number of children who can realistically ride a route.

LSTA makes the system work by combining students, maximizing routes and using the funding available for transportation as efficiently as possible. New Jersey itself measures transportation efficiency partly by how effectively districts utilize vehicle capacity and multiple routes.

So if the Township’s $2.7 million disappears and LSTA simply keeps charging $385, somebody still has to make up that missing $2.7 million.

LSTA cannot manufacture the money.

We should be asking our state officials what can be done to restore the funding that Lakewood lost and whether another solution can be found before families are forced to absorb the entire increase.

But those are different questions from blaming Lakewood Township for no longer writing a $2.7 million check.

There is plenty of frustration to go around, and nobody wants another bill. But sometimes we become so accustomed to receiving something that we forget it was a benefit in the first place.

For approximately a decade, Lakewood Township helped make non-mandated busing affordable for thousands of our children.

Instead of attacking them now because circumstances have forced that assistance to end, perhaps we should first say thank you for the years they were able to provide it.

Then let’s work together, the Township, LSTA, our elected officials, schools and parents, to figure out how we can make the numbers work again.

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