Lakewood school bus agency needs $2 million township loan to keep going
LAKEWOOD – The non-profit consortium that oversees busing for more than 50,000 private school students is borrowing $2 million from the township to fill a temporary shortfall as the school year begins, officials said.
The Lakewood Student Transportation Authority (LSTA) requested the loan to “tide it over” until early 2024.
“This is just to get us through the next several months,” said Avraham Krawiec, director of the LSTA, which began in 2016.
Under a state law created specifically for Lakewood, the LSTA arranges busing for non-public school students who attend some 130 private schools in the township.
Lakewood is one of the fastest growing municipalities in the state, and its public schools annually face a financial crisis in part because of crushing costs to bus Orthodox Jewish students to private schools on separate buses for boys and girls. That practice was challenged in a 2005 case but judges ultimately said there was nothing unconstitutional about the busing.
It is funded with more than $25 million in state funding provided through the Lakewood Public School District at a rate of $710 per student, according to District Spokesman Michael Inzelbuch, who also serves as school board attorney.
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But the actual cost for each student to be transported by private companies is more than $1,000, with the difference covered by the school district.
State statute mandates that all students, private or public, receive free busing if they live more than 2 miles away from their elementary or middle school, and 2.5 miles from high schools.
The district must also pay for busing students across so-called “hazardous routes,” which are deemed by police to be dangerous due to highways or areas lacking safe sidewalks.
In the upcoming 2023-2024 school year, more than 40,000 non-public school students will need subsidized busing, along with more than 5,000 public school students, Inzelbuch said.
The LSTA also serves about 5,000 students whose busing is not mandated or subsidized, but paid for by the families who live with in the walking limits but choose to bus their children.
That means the LSTA is expected to serve a student population of about 50,000, more than the entire K-12 student population of the city of Boston last year.
More: Lakewood Schools deserve more state funding for busing students, appeals court rules
The State Department of Education sets the top fee that bus companies can charge per student. That fee, set at $1,022 last year, has been increased to $1,165 for the 2023-2024 school year, Krawiec said.
But the LSTA is expecting at least 2,500 more non-public school students this fall compared to last spring, sparking a higher cost to the agency.
The additional state funding for the LSTA to match the higher population will not be provided until January because the state needs to verify the number of students being served this fall, officials said.
“The new increased funding, that we are thankful for, only kicks in in January and (student) pickups start in September,” Krawiec said. “The previous year, our costs increased much more than the state amount.”
The state funding delay prompted the $2 million loan, which the Lakewood Township Committee approved on Aug. 18, according to Mayor Ray Coles.
He said it comes from the Lakewood Development Corporation, which administers loans to local businesses using funds raised from the Urban Enterprise Zone half-cent sales tax.
More: Lakewood private school bus fleet hauls 32,000 kids over 13,600 miles each day
Coles said the LSTA borrowed $1 million in 2020 using the same source when it hit financial difficulties during the pandemic.
“It was totally paid back,” the mayor said. “They came to us again a few months ago. With all of the expenses and rising bus costs they were going to be short.”
The LSTA has had its share of problems since its inception beyond just the short-term loans.
A state audit in 2019 found the agency had a $3 million deficit and criticized it for continuing to provide so-called “courtesy busing” for students who lived closer than the 2-mile mandatory distance at the time.
It also found that the authority had issued checks worth $322,000 it didn't have the cash to cover, a sixth of all buses were less than half-full and a majority of stops were for just a single student.
More: Lakewood won't see school aid changes until at least 2024, state says
In a related move, legislation being considered in Trenton would allow school districts statewide to join together to transport non-public school students in programs similar to the LSTA.
If the proposed bill is approved, other districts could join together to better streamline busing for non-public school students statewide, using the LSTA as a model, according to Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, a co-sponsor.
“It would not eliminate that,” Greenwald said about the LSTA. “They could remain and a new entity could be formed to create that model and take it statewide, allowing communities to enter into these programs and maximize existing school dollars to maximize them for transportation.”
State Senator Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, co-sponsored the Senate version, which is expected to be voted on before the end of 2023.
“This allows them to merge and form partnerships to get better pricing,” Gopal said. “So they are not dealing with just one option, you can take 6 or 7 towns and get better pricing and better options.”
Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lakewood busing agency gets $2 million lifeline due to delayed state aid
