Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > July > 20 > Entry
DPS gets busing at no extra cost
A partnership between the city, county, school district, business leaders and the RTA today restored high school bus service in Dayton for the upcoming school year.
This was cutting it pretty close, with school scheduled to open in Dayton on Aug. 6, but just a week ago it looked like there was little chance of a happy resolution to this problem.
The deal that was struck looks to me like a big win for the school district, which got most of its old bus service from RTA at a dramatically reduced cost (practically for free, it looks like), and for the kids, who will not be placed in the uneasy position of transferring by the thousands through downtown.
The district last month had canceled a $2.8 million contract with RTA to bus kids to high schools, mostly on special routes that were created as part of the deal.
For the new agreement, the contract cost is reduced to $1.8 million as RTA will route about 2,000 kids through its regular system and restore some of the direct routes to schools.
The school board, which has consistently said it simply did not have the money for high school busing following the levy defeat in May, essentially kicks in no money to the deal. The district’s $1.1 million share of the busing costs will come from a state subsidy that it otherwise would not have received had bus service been totally cut and from dollars replaced by new free services through a county agency, according to my colleague Lynn Hulsey’s story.
Here are the funders who came to the table to make the deal work, according to the story:
RTA: $200,000 reduction in cost of bus passes.
Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services: $500,000 for district social services, freeing school district dollars to be used for transportation.
Montgomery County: $350,000 subsidy
City of Dayton: $350,000 subsidy
Dayton Public Schools: $600,000 from a state subsidy the district would not receive if bus service was cut.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By JustInTime
July 29, 2007 1:14 PM | Link to this
Illegal? I’m wondering if there’s something illegal or improper in terms of money from the county and the Human Services end with the Jobs Program giving money to an individual school to pay for truant officers, psychologists, and counselors. Is that what the Federal grant was designated for? Is that money that could have been used for something to benefit the WHOLE county by the County Jobs part of Human Services? How about checking into it Scott? I know, your editorial board says otherwise; will that mean you won’t be allowed to take a realistic look into the money shenanigans?By charterschoolhater
July 22, 2007 4:45 PM | Link to this
Hey oldprof. There are other posts here that do not like this deal either. Are they ignorant anti community people too?By charterschoolhater
July 22, 2007 4:43 PM | Link to this
If I am ignorant then educate me with facts not rhetoric. I have some questions for you to start my education. Is this school district in financial trouble? If it is then why do they have so many more administrators than other districts that are larger? Why does the bus fleet only barely meet the requirements to transport K-8? Doesn’t the transportation department have someone accountable to make sure that department runs efficient? If the management has failed, then why have they not been replaced? IF the Dayton Schools are so poor educational and financial, then why does the Board allow Dr. Mack and Stan Lucas to still be employed? The Board owes the citizens of not just Dayton but of the entire county, since they will be paying transportation costs for high school next year an explanation of why Dayton can not work with the money they have. I guess we all have to pay because Dr. Mack is an ineffective boss, and he and Lucas can not manage money. If you can answer these questions then you are smarter than me Oldprof. But I am just anti community. It seems to me that if you are anti status quo you are always accused of being negative. Change needs to come. While we are at it I think the county and city commission owe it’s constituents an explanation as to why they are paying for Dayton’s busing with other people’s money. Not to mention the RTA Board as to why they are mismanaging the subsidy they get with county money. I call for the immediate replacement of Dr. Mack and Stan Lucas for utterly incompetent in finances.By RICLEWIS
July 21, 2007 5:38 PM | Link to this
Why do they have to ride the RTA? Dayton has a fleet of buses that they can use themselves, why bother RTA? I just dont understand. Use the Yellow school busses. Why do city officials away from downtown, or they trying to make Downtown for grown folks only? Young people have billions to spend annually on ringtones alone. If it were my City, I’de special venues aimed directly at highschool kids commuting right through town. The last thing I would do as Mayor is request that all school children be transported away for all the shops of my DowntownBy Rickl
July 21, 2007 4:16 PM | Link to this
When I first read Scott’s post, I thought “Great!” However, Charterschoolhater, JutinTime and Daytonian ask some good questions. Why doesn’t the DDN ask the suburbanites how they feel about paying for the busing of the students of DPS? It’s an obvious question that needs to be asked.By Oldprof
July 21, 2007 10:17 AM | Link to this
Hater, I invite you to educate yourself. Yes, DPS has a fleet of buses, which just barely meets the demand currently placed on them—not only the need to transport elementary and middle school students within the district, but ALSO to transport students for charter schools—and yes, even some out-of-district students. Your comments on this blog continue to prove that your anti-community attitude springs from ignorance.By JustInTime
July 21, 2007 9:35 AM | Link to this
DT wonders what would be the right thing to do? HAVE DPS be responsbile by using one of their buildings instead of buying two expensive money pits from Rey & Rey downtown. HAVE DSP and parents make their kids have downtown so large riotous rights DON’T break out. HAVE police severely handle any misbehavior, black or white. We see police departments having to reevaluate their pursuit procedure because two kids, from West Dayton?, ran instead of stopping. DUH. What would have prevented the deaths? Stopping. Maybe the Human Services could throw some money at that instead of bailing out DPS with our county money. HAVE a city of leaders instead of bordering racists who will say ENOUGH about the bad behavior of youths and druggies. HAVE the mayor make a stand instead of thanking the State governor taft for saving the redlight camera revenue (hit me again Sam). HAVE human services not increase the levy amount for November and try to spend a fortune to get everyone to vote an increase. They’re showing TV ads about how much good they do-expensive. They have money to spend on DPS school problems that weren’t being spent by the whole county—now they’ll want an increase. Maybe they can take back some money from Szorko (sp) in the alcohol division; is he still employed? No one could replace him. Odd. HAVE the county commission not play politics with the county residents’ monies. HAVE regionalism mean that Dayton does what’s good for the REGION instead of the REGION do what’s good for DAYTON. When did Dayton share income from the large companies who used to be in their tax base? When did DAYTON share the redlight camera money? When did DAYTON share the baseball field and build in Trotwood-private money not public tax in that case. When did DAYTON not waste area park money on fountains in the river and a bridge to nowhere across the river (fountains didn’t work in Louisville before these were built-slow learners). The turkeys come home to roost. If regionalism means the county pays for Dayton’s responsibilities, do you have to ask why growth is so good in Miami and Warren/Butler counties? We may be next out of Montgovery if Montgomery County taxes go even more to subsidize Dayton responsibilities.By Concerned Mom of 3
July 21, 2007 12:03 AM | Link to this
Thank you to all the parties who stepped up to help solve a problem. While I think this is only a “Band-Aid” fix for the school funding issue, I think the community did the right thing for the students of DPS. Providing free bussing is the right thing to do. Preventing problems is the right thing to do. Thank you again to all involved.By charterschoolhater
July 20, 2007 7:49 PM | Link to this
Don’t the Dayton Public Schools have their own busses. Why do people who do not live in the city of Dayton have to pay to bus Dayton’s students. I think the Dayton City and the Montgomery County Commission need to be tarred and feathered on this one. What responsibillity of it is for the good citizens of Oakwood, Kettering, Trotwood, Centerville, Brookville, Germantown, Jefferson Twp, Riveside, did I miss someone?, to pay to bus Dayton’s Kids? The Dayton Public Schools do not pay to bus the kids in these communities. What an outrage. The Dayton Bd of Ed has a lot of ballls to ask other communities to pay the bill through the county sales tax that subsidizes RTA, and the general fund of Montgomery County of which all citizens pay into. Didn’t the Dayton City Commission just say they were broke, and had to cut city services to balance a budget. Apparently they lied on this one. What happened to the private business contribution? I know I will be voting against some city and county commissioners and School Board Members for this one. Not to mention another No vote on the levy. The school board must live within its means and quit asking others to pay for their mismanagement of funds. I think that all citizens of Montgomery county who do not live in Dayton deserve an explanation of why their funds are going to bus other communities children. Ask them Scott, and put the explanation in the blog. How does a city commission who is cutting services come with money to pay to bus school children? Ask them Scott and put it in the blog. I am angry on this one. What an outrage!!By Skeptic
July 20, 2007 2:14 PM | Link to this
In reply to the comments about “other people’s money” I say: it’s about time! How can anyone be so cynical about regional partnership and problem-solving? We need more moves like this if the Dayton region wants to succeed in the national marketplace. The City, County, and State will save money in the long run if they help keep kids in school instead of prison or on welfare. It’s nice to finally see some real leadership on these issues.By daytonviewtrianglemom
July 20, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this
I think this is great work. I’m proud of community leaders for coming together and thinking of solutions to potential problems. I would hate to see the citizen complaints about all the extra teens who would have been out of school causing trouble had they not found this solution. Bravo!By Beth
July 20, 2007 12:36 PM | Link to this
Unfortunately, the students are getting the ultimate “screwing”, as Daytonian puts it. Instead of complaining about the funding for DPS, look higher. The current way of funding Ohio schools was declared unconstitutional ten years ago, but our Ohio government can’t seem to figure out how to fix it. DPS is having the same problems as every large city in the state. If you want to complain, complain to the state government.By Taxed2thegills
July 20, 2007 12:23 PM | Link to this
So as a voter this shows me 2 things: 1. I was right to vote down the school levy because it forced the school and community to come up with creative ways like this to keep busing and made DECA a charter school free from teachers’ union tyrrany and 2. Mont Co. Services much be so flush with money that I need not vote for their levy in the fall….that’s win-win.By D.T.
July 20, 2007 11:23 AM | Link to this
JustinTime and Daytonian, just what would make you happy here? if someone didn’t step up here thousands of students would spend 30-90 minutes downtown everyday. You may not realize how much of a problem that is. In the one year that students from my school were routed downtown I had three girls in my homeroom who were followed and then solicited and several of our students ended up in fights. Also concerning JustinTime’s comments about the RTA using public tax dollars to solve a DPS problem, I think you are looking at this problem to narrowly. If you think back a few years to the huge brawl downtown you’ll realize that incidents like that reflect poorly on the entire region, not just Dayton proper. That incident was what prompted DPS and RTA to develop a busing system that would circumvent the downtown issue. In this particular instance RTA is doing what is best for everyone, not just DPS students.By JustinTime
July 20, 2007 8:52 AM | Link to this
So once again we have Dayton City Schools using other people’s money to provide their services to the students. The RTA is funded by people’s sales tax in the entire county and they were subsidizing busing before and now have a $200,000 reduction in bus passes. The Montgomery County Jobs and Human Services (paid for by human services levy which has been putting advertising on TV about how wonderfully they’re doing and will want an additional levy in November) is donating $500,000 of other people’s money. Montgomery County is donating $350,000 of everyone’s money. Does anyone see a pattern here? The city districts weren’t happy with the extra monies they received under the funding plans from the State in the past and have been wanting mo’ money from someone else. In Dayton the Rey&Rey buildings have gotten what they want. They’ve not asked for levies to maintain funding through the last 15 years; they’ve gotten OPM (other people’s money) to pay for busing; and they will want more OPM from the State taxpayers to do what the City Schools should be doing with their own local funding. Even the mayor gets a quote in the newspaper article which is meaningless but what can we expect from a part of the problem; Hit me again Sam.By Daytonian
July 20, 2007 8:38 AM | Link to this
It’s amazing that the City of Dayton feels so flush with cash that they can come up with $350,000 to support this while saying that they now have to charge citizens for every service provided at the same time as they have close to the highest income tax rate in the county!!! I’m over getting bleed dry in this City! It’s also interesting how the DPS have found ways to come up with $$$ and sidetrack the mandate of the voters after the voters turned down their levy increase. DPS is having the last word and the voters are getting screwed!