West Hempstead tackles ‘complex’ busing issues

Transporting children to private schools cost the West Hempstead school district about $2.15 million last year — and that was an improvement over the $2.4 million it cost the year prior.

“We transport to about 100 locations every day,” Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham told members of the West Hempstead Board of Education at their Jan. 17 meeting. He presented to them a breakdown of the district’s “complex” transportation needs and requirements, and outlined the steps it is taking to reduce expenses, including the goal it set to cut contract transportation appropriations by $1 million for 2012-13.

District administrators told trustees they are working to collect information and explore the recommendations that transportation consultant Ross Haber made to them last summer; they hired him after it became clear that the transportation budget, at nearly 10 percent of the total budget, was unsustainable.

In his report, Haber lauded the district for providing good service and working efficiently despite the complexity of its system, but he reached several conclusions about areas that need improvement — particularly West Hempstead’s participation in the Southwest Quadrant Pupil Transportation Consortium, a cooperative that has failed to provide effective shared services and, thus, has not led to savings.

To address the issue, district administrators took immediate action and began working with other Consortium member districts to revise the bid model:

- Packaging routes as a unit, instead of allowing vendors to build routes

- Using electronic resources, such as Google Docs, for efficient data collection

- Rebidding work that is no longer a shared service

- Considering a new Consortium consultant

- Considering a new lead agency (member district)

Aside from the Consortium, West Hempstead is also looking for more opportunities to participate in the BOCES transportation cooperative, which is part of the state’s 21st Century Demonstration Project Grant. It will also explore Haber’s recommendation to “take back” more routing responsibility from contractors — an action that would require the district to provide help for its transportation staff.

Following Cunningham’s presentation, the board voted to allow administrators to issue a request for proposals for a consultant or firm that specializes in routing, and would help redesign routes, rebid work and consolidate contracted equipment. The district has already issued an RFP.

Haber’s other suggestions included:

- Changing bell times at the middle and high schools to increase the ability to tier routes

- Centralizing bus stops for private-school students

- And increasing walk distances for middle- and high-school students

Cunningham said the district has to further analyze the financial impact of changing bell times — because the two schools share staff — and the feasibility of centralizing bus stops. The latter, he warned board trustees, is a sensitive matter.

“If the board looks to make a significant change in the level of service, whether it is centralized bus stops for out-of-district transportation or changing the walk distances,” Cunningham told the Herald, “… I think that’s something that requires a lot of community input.”

He went on say the situation is similar to those other school districts are facing. Some are in the process of closing schools, “and you can see how much anxiety that creates in a community,” Cunningham said. “Sometimes these thing have clear cut financial savings. I know Mr. Haber … suggested there might be savings, but even he could not identify what those savings would be.”

Increasing walk distances requires a voter-approved referendum, and would mostly affect public-school students and those of St. Thomas the Apostle School and the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County.

West Hempstead administrators told the board they are also studying actual ridership to determine the feasibility of route consolidation — particularly for middle and high school students — and equipment downsizing (from buses to passenger vans, for example).

Calling the goal to reduce transportation costs by $1 million “concrete,” Cunningham said he’s optimistic that the district will make significant improvements. “We’re taking positive steps that will continue not only in 2012-13, but also in 2013-14,” he said.