Missouri is one of many states with strict balanced budget requirements, and school busing will take the brunt of widescale cuts designed to dig the state out of the red.

Gov. Jay Nixon responded this month to additional, dismal economic forecasts by submitting an FY 2011 budget that cuts an additional $301 million on top of another $300 million in cuts made by the state legislature earlier this year. School transportation topped the list of programs being cut at $70 million, which cuts nearly in half the funding available to school districts for busing regular education students during the 2010-2011 school year.

Dr. Roger Dorson, coordinator of school administrative services at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the state budget for school busing now rests at about $83 million from its original figure of nearly $153 million, which means many districts are faced with making their own cuts to service, or eliminating them altogether.

Just last month, Bayless School District in St. Louis announced it was eliminating bus transportation to and from school starting the coming school year. All school districts are required by the state to provide school buses to students who live 3.5 miles or farther from schools. But Bayless, and many smaller, more urban districts like it, do not have any students who live that far away. Instead, Bayless is adding crossing guards at busy intersections and asking parents to make alternative arrangements such as carpooling or forming walking groups for their children.

Missouri does reimburse allowable costs incurred by school districts when transporting students who live one or more miles from school. Dorson said other possible school district responses to the budget slashing could be extending eligibility to beyond 1.5 miles from school, charging parents a fee for school bus service and increasing walk distances to school bus stops.

"At this point, because the announcement was just made, it's probably still sinking in," he said.

Dorson added that the school busing cuts won't affect students with IEPs that put into place guidelines for transportation services. But, as Dennis Hamman at the Missouri Association for Pupil Transportation pointed out, these special needs operations must make additional cuts and even eliminations to keep these federall-mandated transportation services rolling.

Meanwhile, last week, the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School advisory committee awarded 34 non-infrastructure grants totaling $582,000 to communities across the state to encourage children, including those with disabilities in grades K-8, to walk, wheel, and bicycle to and from school.