Just in time for the start of classes: Record rising fuel costs are eating up school budgets at a greater pace than ever. Georgia school systems expect to shell out about 60 percent more per gallon than this time last year for school buses that use diesel — 98 percent of the fleet.

The state's answer? A shrug.

Nick Arroyo/AJC STAFF (ENLARGE)

Districts are trying to save on transportation costs, from where to park buses to idling time.

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State lawmakers OK'd only a $3 million bump in pupil transportation funds — less than a 2 percent expansion to be shared statewide. To put that in perspective, Cobb County alone has a fuel budget of $6.6 million.

Officials with the state Education Department blame the Legislature.

"We make budget requests," department spokesman Dana Tofig said. "We can only give out what we are allocated."

With no relief in sight, local school systems are scrambling to figure out how to deal with the sticker shock. Their decisions will affect services for tens of thousands of children every day.

School officials consider direct cuts in the classroom verboten, but everything else is on the table. They may delay textbook purchases, cancel field trips or change bus routes. Discussion this summer among Georgia sports officials swirled around the cost to get to away games — and whether that might mean cuts to high school schedules.

Nationwide, some school systems have debated whether to cut bus service and make more students walk. Metro Atlanta systems — so far — aren't going there, but they may be running out of options.

Systems could also consider combining or eliminating inefficient routes, a process they go through every year but made more urgent by rising fuel costs.

"We are instructing drivers ... not to idle for more than three minutes," said Joe Manguno, spokesman for the Atlanta city school system, which expects to spend an additional $500,000 for diesel this year.

In Cobb, transportation director Rick Grisham said more buses will park on school campuses — instead of at countywide bus depots — to cut down on mileage. The system has also raised the cost for schools taking field trips from $2 a mile to $3 and bought a software program to more efficiently plan routes.

"From what we have seen over the past 12 months and what we are hearing in the media, I would expect that we will go over the 2008 budgeted monies during the next year," Grisham said, voicing a fear held by many school officials. "By how much is anyone's guess."

State law deems a student who lives at least a mile and a half from their regular school as eligible for transportation. Several metro systems, at least for now, are more generous, especially for younger students: Atlanta has a one-mile policy for elementary students; and Cobb provides buses for elementary students at least a half-mile from campus.

In DeKalb County, busing for all ages starts outside of one mile. No changes to that policy have been announced, although they could be coming.

DeKalb officials said that even a 1-cent increase per gallon in their price for diesel equates to an additional $22,500 annually. A task force commissioned by DeKalb Superintendent Crawford Lewis has over the summer been studying the system's transportation efforts. It is expected to release findings in coming weeks.

As for the state, Carlton Allen, the state Education Department's transportation director, said through a spokesman that he requested $415 million for this school year —based on what systems spent in the 2006-07 school year, the latest available data he had. Those monies go not only to fuel but things like maintenance, driver salaries and bus replacement.

According to state averages, the system price for a gallon of diesel in 2006 cost $2.07. By May of this year, it had climbed to $3.99 — with a rise expected over the summer.

Yet lawmakers this year rationed out $171 million for pupil transportation. Last year, it was $168 million.

Rising costs

What systems pay for a gallon of diesel has gone up dramatically, but state funding has not, leaving local officials to decide where else in their budget the money comes from.