I-Team: On school bus bills, some districts get bargains. Others get taken for a ride.

New Jersey’s two largest school districts - Newark Public Schools and Elizabeth Public Schools - have a lot in common.

Situated on either side of Newark Liberty International Airport, they are about six miles apart from each other. Both school systems serve primarily students of color, and both districts classify more than 10% of their kids with some type of disability.  

But look a little closer at their respective budgets, and you’ll see a glaring difference. Elizabeth’s school bus bill is twice as expensive as Newark’s on a per student basis.

How much is your school district paying for transportation?

NBC New York looked at school districts in New Jersey to see how much, on average, each district pays to get their students to school. The size of each data point reflects the portion of the general budget each district spends on transportation. The bigger the point, the larger the budget.

Hover or click over each district on the map below, or click on each row on the table to see more information.

Note: Only districts that bus 500 or more students were included in this graphic

Data: 2021 NJ Dept. of Education Budget and Transportation Data • Analysis: Chris Glorioso, Eduardo Gonzalez Quintero • Development: Nina Lin, NBC

According to 2021 data published by the New Jersey Department of Education, Newark schools spend an average of just above $3,800 for each student transported by bus. That compares with about $8,000 in Elizabeth, where per student expenditures on transportation are the highest of any district that puts at least a thousand kids on buses.

Barbara Rebelo, a mother of two students in Elizabeth Public Schools, said she wants an explanation for the stark difference in school bus costs.

“I wish they would let us know and be transparent with us, letting us know where the money is going to and why they’re spending more than like any other district,” Rebelo said. “We would like to know where our kids’ money is going to.”

Through a district spokesperson, Elizabeth Schools Superintendent Olga Hugelmeyer declined an interview request from NBC New York. When asked about school bus bills on her way into a public meeting, Hugelmeyer defended the district’s expenditures and expressed no concern about transportation costs eating into classroom budgets.

“I believe that our State Board of Education affords us an adequate budget to meet the needs of our students and we certainly build a budget to serve every child in this district,” Hugelmeyer said. “We know that there are bus shortages all throughout. We know that there is a teacher shortage. I’m very fortunate right now that when we open our doors on September 8 we will be transporting our children to their schools.”

The puzzling imbalance between two similar school districts, paying vastly different costs for school busing – is not unique. The NBC New York I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga analyzed transportation costs for every NJ school district that transports at least 500 children via bus. The resulting map shows how neighboring school systems often pay per-student transportation bills that differ greatly - even though the districts appear to have similar student bodies.

“It’s not fair,” said Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Freehold), who Chairs the NJ Senate Education Committee. Gopal believes New Jersey’s nearly 600 school districts are effectively bidding against each other, raising the price of bus transportation and saddling some school systems with unsustainable costs. He wants the state to require school districts merge their transportation operations to save money.

“We have to start mandating some of these shared service agreements. Whether it’s healthcare costs, waste management, snow removal, IT, communications. A lot of this needs to start getting merged,” Gopal said. “A lot of these superintendents will not be happy because that’s what they’re used to. People don’t like change. But I feel like change has to come.”

In 2009, a group of state-appointed Executive Superintendents recommended all school busing be managed and paid for at the county level so all New Jersey students get an equitable deal on transportation costs. 

“One of the problems that we have in New Jersey is we have almost 600 school districts. That means that every single district is providing transportation for its own students and so there is not a lot of efficiency in that system,” said Danielle Farrie, Research Director at the Education Law Center, a Newark-basked nonprofit that advocates for more equitable school funding. “It’s unlikely that we’re going to change the district boundaries but the state has, in the past, encouraged districts to use shared services. I think the state maybe needs to take a more active role and re-invigorate those efforts to make sure that districts are not all out there on their own negotiating contracts.”

New Jersey’s Acting Education Commissioner, Angelica Allen-McMillan, did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment on the idea of shared service agreements or cost-sharing for school bus transportation. In disadvantaged districts, the majority of school bus transportation funding comes from state taxpayers.

Dr. Timothy Purnell, Executive Director of the NJ School Boards Association, expressed concern that mandating cost-sharing could take local control away from district-level decision-makers. He acknowledged ballooning school bus bills are taking a toll on education budgets but said one of the most direct ways to lower costs would be to increase the pool of bus drivers.

“We believe the shortage of bus drivers is a root issue,” Purnell said. “We’re seeing after-school activities, athletics, programs being canceled because we can’t get the drivers.”

Purnell is urging state legislators to pass a bill that would make it legal for people without commercial driver licenses to operate school buses that carry nine or fewer students. That bill has passed the State Assembly but would need to be advance to a full vote in the State Senate.

While school districts cannot control if and when state rules might change to make bus driver recruitment easier, experts say there is something wholly in their control. The efficient use of the bus fleets they employ.

“Districts need to look at their routing schemes and not look at it as ‘this is what we’ve always done,’” said Janine Byrnes, President of the School Transportation Supervisors of New Jersey, an association dedicated to promoting safety, efficiency and ethics in school busing. “You need to be packing the buses full of students.”

The New Jersey Department of Education asks districts to utilize at least 120% of their bus fleet capacity each morning - which means an efficient district needs to stagger school opening times so some buses can complete a second round of pickups and drop-offs after its earliest morning routes.  

According to the most recent state data, Elizabeth utilizes only about 68% of the seats on its buses each morning.   

Pat Politano, a contracted spokesperson for Elizabeth Public Schools, acknowledged that the district’s K-8 schools have the same opening bell, making it difficult for buses to serve multiple schools at multiple times. But he stressed high traffic volume in the city coupled with door-to-door transportation requirements for many special needs kids makes it unfair to compare Elizabeth with Newark or any other district.

“You’re trying to compare apples to oranges,” Politano wrote in an email to the I-Team. “The nature of the children’s special needs means the buses can’t be filled to capacity.” 

According to state data, Newark operates its buses at just over 200% capacity while transporting a higher percentage of special needs students than Elizabeth.