The San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District, which buses about 400 students to and from school every day, absorbed a 20 percent cut to its state-funded transportation budget, followed by shortened hours for drivers and consolidated routes.
In May, five of the seven district bus drivers had their schedules cut from eight hours a day to six.
The Highway 9 and Bear Creek stops were also consolidated to shorten the routes yet still serve all the students.
The district braced for the worst after hearing that the school bus system might face a 65 percent cut in state funding, said Steve Burley, director of transportation.
“At the time, we were anticipating a larger transportation cut,” Burley said. “But we’re still getting 20 percent less than we should have.”
Bus driver Debbie Edington has been carting students to and from school for the past 19 years and knows firsthand how important the bus system is to the community.
“We live here and we care about this community — our kids and grandkids go to school here,” Edington said. “I want to stress how important ridership is. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. The state budget changes every day.”
With the unsteady economy and massive statewide cuts, job security for school transportation workers has been a sensitive issue, Edington said.
Erin McCuiston, another driver, said that statistics show that the safest place for someone to be on the roadway is in a school bus.
“Riding the bus saves traffic and the environment,” McCuiston added. “And as a parent, it would be detrimental to me to lose the bus system.”
Burley said that transportation has always been under-funded by the state and is very vulnerable to budget cuts. However, at this point, the district can continue running transportation at current levels for the year, he said.
“We’re still in desperate straits,” Burley said. “We’ve always been. We just hope it doesn’t get any worse. We hope the whole thing doesn’t get cut. If it does, we’re back to the drawing board.”
