Report (pdf) - School Management Services

Ladysmith-Hawkins School District contracts its student transportation
system with six different contractors and operates 12 student transportation
routes and 2 special education routes. (Additionally, the school district
owns and operates 2 special education buses). According to the 2007-08
annual audit, Ladysmith-Hawkins School District expended $756,468 from
its General Fund and Special Education Fund budgets for the delivery of
student transportations services.
Weyerhaeuser Area School District owns and operates its own student
transportation system. Representatives of the Transportation Department
reported operating three routes. The roster of students on each of the
three transportation routes illustrates that 100 students are transported.
According to the 2007-08 annual audit, Weyerhaeuser Area School District
expended $105,309 for operation of the student transportation system from
the General Fund and Special Education Fund budgets. The school
district’s longest student transportation route is 54 miles with one hour and
fifteen minutes of travel time.
According to SchoolFacts data for the 2006-07 school year, the
cost/student for student transportation services in the School District of
Bruce ($561/student), Ladysmith-Hawkins School District ($709/student),
and Weyerhaeuser Area School District ($566/student) all exceeded the
State of Wisconsin K-12 district average cost/student ($441/student). The
Project Consultants concluded that such levels of expenditure may well be
understandable, given the rural nature of the study’s school districts, their
small critical student masses, and declining enrollments.
© Roger Worner Associates, Inc.
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