Lake Washington students may have longer walks
August 12, 2009
By Christopher Huber
New: Aug. 12, 12:42 p.m.
School board passes $216.7 million budget
North Sammamish parents should pay attention when they get their child’s 2009-2010 bus route flyer in the mail this month. Many students in the Lake Washington School District will have to walk a little farther to catch the school bus this year.
The Lake Washington School Board officially adopted its 2009-2010 budget at its meeting Aug. 10. The $216.7 million spending plan included cost-cutting measures in the transportation department beyond the initial draft presented in June, said Kathryn Reith, director of communications.
One of the major revisions district officials squeezed out of the budget — financial officers presented a proposed version to the board in June — was a $350,000 reduction in the transportation budget. Eighty percent of the district’s routes have some change to them, Reith said.
“It’s a pretty significant impact,” she said.
She said district transportation employees spent the past two months pouring over each individual bus route and eventually cut the amount of daily stops by about 33 percent, from 1,500 district-wide to 1,000.
But parents shouldn’t be too worried, though, as their children should only have to walk an additional couple of blocks to the bus stop, Reith said.
“Students may even be asked to walk out to the front of their subdivision to catch the bus,” she said.
Other than trying to save overall costs in the midst of unprecedented state funding gaps, the goal was to reduce inefficient fuel use. The more stops a bus makes along its route, the more fuel it uses, due to frequent idling and accelerating.
“If they stop less frequently, sometimes we can shorten the route and there’s less idling time,” Reith said.
Another change some parents will see when they get their annual school-bus route flyer is their child may actually have to walk a few blocks away from school to hop on the bus.
State funding only covers stops that are more than one mile (as the crow flies) from a school. Lake Washington had provided some bus stops within that one-mile radius, but those are now being moved outside in order to qualify for state funding.
The transportation budget was the most visible cost reduction in the adopted budget, but other, cuts included a four-person reduction in the central administration staff, from 24 to 20. The district also added dollars from the 2006 technology levy to implement a new communication system, School Messenger, which is an automated messaging system. The system is meant for emergency use, Reith said, but parents may also periodically receive reminder calls about things such as lunch money balances or curriculum night.
2009-2010 revised bus routes are available at www.lwsd.org/Schools/School-and-Bus-Finder/Pages/New-Bus-Route-Schedules.aspx. View the adopted 2009-2010 budget at www.lwsd.org/About/Budget-Info/Pages/default.aspx.
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com. Comment on this story at www.sammamishreview.com.
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