District 31 referendum failure could increase bus costs at other school districts

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Updated: March 24, 2012 8:50AM

Officials in West Northfield Elementary School District 31 won’t decide until after a March 20 tax hike referendum whether they will continue to offer bus service.

However, if the district does decide to drop the program it will likely mean higher costs for other Northfield Township districts.

As part of a plan to cut programs and services if the referendum fails, District 31 has asked parents if they would be willing to pick up the cost of bus service for their kids, estimated at between $750 and $1,000 per student per year.

However, in a survey of parents with more than 300 responses only slightly more than 20 percent said they would be willing to foot the cost of bus service for their children, according to a preliminary count.

The deadline to submit the survey was Feb. 10.

Currently parents pay a portion of the cost, $420 a year per child.

District 31 spends about $150,000 in district funds which includes the total cost for low-income students. Overall the district’s transportation costs about $280,000 a year said Superintendent Alexandra Nicholson.

Nicholson said the district does not plan to make any decision until after the March vote.

The measure, which would increase the maximum tax rate in the district by 27 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation, is expected to generate about $1.55 million in revenue.

“It will all depend on the referendum,” Nicholson said. “We if lose we will look at a final count of the survey. We’ll look at our options. Definitely there will be massive changes in transportation.”

But Nicholson said it appears that most parents think the cost “is too high and they’ll find alternate transportation.”

District 31 is in a joint contract with Northbrook Elementary District 27, Northbrook Elementary District 28, Northbrook/Glenview Elementary District 30 and Glenbrook High School District 225.

District 27 Business Manger Kimberly Arakelian said the consortium normally has to make a decision on a joint contract by Feb. 1, but has delayed it until April 1 this year so that officials will know the results of the District 31 referendum.

She said the district expects that its cost will increase if District 31 drops out and the remaining districts stay in the joint contract with First Student Transportation. However, she said, the district has not tried to determine how much that might be.

An alternative, she said, might be to go out for new bids. With the April 1 deadline for a decision on extending the existing contact she said the district will have time to seek additional bids if the school board decides to take that route.

“There have been no decisions that have been made,” Arakelian said.

District 28 Superintendent Larry Hewitt told his board at a meeting last week that he expects the district’s cost increase to be “in the range of 10 percent” next year if District 31 drops out of the consortium and the remaining districts want to maintain the contract.

Otherwise, he said, the contract has a built-in 2.5 percent cost increase.

Nicholson said while she is aware the cost will go up for other districts if hers drops out, the amount will depend at least in part on the numbers of students and routes that are needed.

“Our not being in the consortium will increase the cost of transportation for the other districts,” she said.

In addition to eliminating district spending for transportation, the list of about $1 million in cuts planned if the referendum fails includes all sports teams, all before- and after-school activities and gifted education.

Other planned cuts include elimination of all regular education instructional assistants, a reduction in staff for Speech and Language services, as well as a decrease in staff for Literacy services at Field Middle School, elimination of a Spanish Bilingual Education program assistant, eliminated of a Korean social worker and elimination of a Winkelman health office assistant.

Large cuts also are planned in the area of fine arts with Beginning, Concert and Symphonic Bands, as well as instrumental lessons eliminated and the Field fine arts teaching staff will be reduced by the equivalence of 1.5 positions.