At last year’s school board’s budget hearing, I asked why transportation costs were rising nearly 5 percent when gas prices had plunged about 50 percent. I got no answer. Now I read in the WW-P News that the transportation budget is climbing 9.5 percent (!) for the coming school year to $11 million, and that the busing contract is costing us taxpayers 6 percent more after a 4.7 percent increase the year before.
We are spending $11 million — 6.4 percent of our school budget — on something that has nothing to do with education. Put another way, we are spending an average of more than $1,000 per student just to get each of them to and from school.
I am not naive enough to believe that we can do away with busing, but I do believe our school board and administrators can do better. They can work with officials in both West Windsor and Plainsboro to make it safer for more students who live near school to get there on foot and by bike and reduce the number of buses we use.
We may need to hire more crossing guards, but even that is cheaper than what we pay for a bus. And if our administrators put their minds to it, I am sure they can find other ways to curb our monstrous busing bill. We taxpayers deserve it.
Silvia Ascarelli
Melville Road, West Windsor
