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Funding formula for school transportation to be developed Friday, Sep 1, 2006 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A panel of state lawmakers voted Thursday to include a variety of education associations in the development of a new public school transportation funding formula. The study by the Academic Facilities Oversight Committee will examine how the state's 245 school districts currently pay to transport students, how many children are bused and the condition of the roads in the districts. "It's critical that (school districts) buy into this plan," Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena, said during a committee meeting Thursday. "This will look at how we distribute the funding for public transportation to kids," said Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant. A draft school funding adequacy study recommended that the state pay $286 per student for transportation costs. Broadway and other lawmakers said Thursday that the new transportation funding formula would allow money to be distributed to the school districts based on student population, road conditions and other factors districts face each day while transporting students to and from school. Some districts might get more money for transportation under the new formula, while others might receive less, he said. The committee voted to include representatives from the Arkansas School Boards Association, Arkansas Education Association, the Arkansas Association of Education Administrators and the Arkansas Association of Pupil Transportation in developing the formula. Mike Simmons, senior transportation manager with the state Department of Education, also will participate in the gathering of information and development of a new formula. The House and Senate education committees, which met Wednesday with the Joint Adequacy Study Oversight Subcommittee, asked the facilities panel to develop the transportation funding plan by the end of the year. After Thursday's meeting, Broadway said the state at one time had a funding distribution formula for transportation costs, but that the formula was largely political and not based on based on facts, such as road conditions. The measure was repealed in 1995, he said. Broadway said efficiency will play a role in the study. "It will take into account road conditions, but also ... whether a district has too many buses, or to few buses," he said. "A district with high transportation costs may have too many busses. "The complicated part of this is going to be taking in all those factors and being able to do it on an equal basis, so it will be pass (during the 2007 session)." Also during Thursday's meeting, the committee voted to ask the state's congressional delegation and the U.S. Department of Defense to look at what do with the crowded Arnold Drive Elementary School at the Little Rock Air Force base. The school is part of the Pulaski County Special School District. In a letter to the committee, Brig. Gen. Kip Self, commander of the 314th Airlift Wing at the base, said he expects as many as 500 more military personnel to move onto the base in the next few years because of base closings around the country. The school will not be able to hold an influx of new students, he said. "This population growth will increase the number of school-age children at Arnold Drive School, and those who will reside in base housing or nearby housing developments," he said. |
