School districts that pay to bus students to special education programs in the Eastern Upper Peninsula may save hundreds of thousands of dollars, collectively, owing to a plan by the Intermediate School District, which has offered to take over special education busing for districts that do not qualify for special education transportation relief under the State School Aid Act, said Peter Everson, superintendent of the ISD. Saving money on busing will help reduce school debts and help districts ensure that they have enough revenue for their educational programs, administrators say.

The ISD qualifies for a 70% reimbursement from the state for special education busing costs. For local districts to get involved and realize the savings, Mr. Everson is pushing local school boards to take action this month.

"I think it will benefit our district greatly, and we will be providing exactly the same service," said Mike Springsteen, superintendent of St. Ignace Area Schools. "I anticipate [the school board] will formalize the action at the May meeting."

The plan is specific to bus routes that transport children to facilities with special programs, such as the Rudyard Area Service Center, or buses dispatched separately that have special equipment like wheelchair lifts. The plan will not cover regular buses on which special needs students ride to school.

Schools are mandated to provide special education equipment and services, which are often expensive, but do not receive extra funding from the state to do so, Mr. Springsteen said.

The ISD's plan will not disrupt procedures for students who ride buses to special programs. They will probably take the same buses they ride now. Drivers and bus aides working on special education bus routes will keep their jobs and will be paid through the ISD, Mr. Everson said.

The transition from local to ISD oversight will help districts save money for other education needs.

"We are expecting a seamless transition," he said.

If local school districts take part in the ISD's initiative, they will begin seeing savings on transportation costs at the beginning of the 2009/2010 school year, at the earliest. To get results by then, local districts must agree to take part in the plan this spring, Mr. Everson said.

To get local districts involved, he has been talking to school boards and superintendents for the past several months.

Locally, St. Ignace Area Schools, Les Cheneaux Community Schools, Rudyard Area Schools, and the districts they cooperate with for special education transportation stand to benefit from this plan, Mr. Everson said.

Reports detailing transportation costs are prepared the year after the transportation takes place. The following data is based on the 2006/2007 school year:

St. Ignace Area Schools spent $34,056 transporting special needs students to the Rudyard Area Service Center. If costs remained the same, and the route were taken over by the ISD, the district would save about $22,000.

The calculation for Les Cheneaux, Pickford, and DeTour schools is more complex because these districts collaborate on special education busing. Collectively, for Pickford and Les Cheneaux, it is $52,519. If this figure stayed the same, the ISD could reduce the expenditure by about $27,000, minus Pickford's contribution, Mr. Everson said.

Rudyard Area Schools spent $147,426 in 2006/2007. The ISD could reduce this by about $104,000.

Other districts in the ISD that will save money include Tahquamenon Area Schools, which spent $99,082 and would save about $70,000. The Sault Area Public School District spent $376,551 and would save about $265,000.

The price of fuel has jumped about 33% since these figures were calculated, so school districts now have even higher transportation costs and are likely to save even more, Mr. Everson said.

The ISD is pushing to get the project in motion because it has to prepare legal documents and possibly purchase some of its own buses, which can take months, Mr. Everson said.