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2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District]

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Student Transportation

Transportation Efficiency Review for: [District.]

6/19/2013

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary 3

System Overview 4

Review Methodology 5

Section One: Relative Efficiency Rating 6

Section Two: Key Performance Indicators 7

Section Three: Initial School District Interview XX

Section Four: School District Comments XX

Appendix I Efficiency Detail Report XX

Appendix II Online Transportation Survey XX

Appendix III Key Performance Indications XX

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Executive Summary

Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 28A.160.117 requires the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Regional Transportation Coordinators (RTCs) to provide an efficiency rating process to encourage school districts to operate their student transportation systems in an efficient manner. The ratings are generated by a widely used methodology known as Data Envelopment Analysis, a mathematical optimization process using linear programming. Except for geographic data, all the inputs used in the analysis are submitted by the district through the Student Transportation Allocation Reporting System (STARS), used to calculate the district’s annual transportation funding.

Xxxxx School District is a (size-descriptive) district in (region description) Washington with a full time equivalent enrollment for the 2011–12 school year of xxxx.x students. Of those enrolled, Xxxxx provided home-to-school transportation service for an average of xxxx basic program riders and xxxx special program riders per day (combined AM and PM student counts divided by two). The district operated xxx school buses to provide this service, at a total cost of $xxx,xxx.xx.

The efficiency system target for XXXXXX School District would be to operate xxx school buses at a cost of $xxx,xxx.xx.

The Regional Transportation Coordinator review was conducted by Xxxxx Xxxxxx.

The regional coordinator found that the most significant factors regarding the district’s operating costs and efficiency were:

 Xxxx  Xxxx

Suggested areas to evaluate for improvement in efficiency are:

 Xxxxx  Xxxxx

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 3 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] System Overview Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 28A.160.117 requires the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to provide an efficiency rating process to encourage school districts to operate their student transportation systems in an efficient manner. The majority of the data used by this efficiency rating process is identical to that used by the Student Transportation Allocation Reporting System (STARS), the new student transportation funding system implemented September 1, 2011. It is important to note that any system providing an efficiency rating of a real world transportation operation does so by comparison to some arbitrarily defined standard. The possible efficiency of any school district’s transportation system is constrained by every school district having unique local characteristics, but also by individual student transportation requirements that are often beyond the district’s control. For instance, a school district may be required to provide relatively expensive transportation to enable access to appropriate services for a special needs student. The resulting impact on expenditures may be significant and have a corresponding negative impact on the relative efficiency rating1. Rather than using an arbitrary standard such as comparing each district with a particular benchmark cost per student, OSPI determines the relative efficiency rating for each school district using a statistical method called the Target Resource Model (TRM). For districts less than 100 percent efficient, TRM creates a statistical “target district” from other school districts across the state that have environmental features, size characteristics and workload requirements that are the same or more challenging and compares the district’s total transportation costs and the number of buses used with this “target”. The target district establishes the resource requirements (expenditures and number of buses) that would be needed to achieve a 100 percent relative efficiency score. For districts rated less than 100 percent efficient, the “efficiency cohort districts” are those districts used in developing the target district characteristics. For additional details on the TRM, see “Development of Student Transportation Funding Methodology Options for Washington State” on OSPI’s Student Transportation website: http://www.k12.wa.us/Transportation/publications.aspx Under the requirements of RCW 28A.160.117, the Regional Transportation Coordinators (RTCs) are required to provide individual efficiency reviews of those school districts with a relative efficiency rating of less than 90 percent, in order to assist those districts in determining what actions are available to improve operational efficiency. For the 2013 Efficiency Ratings, a statistical overview will be provided to all

1. Ideally, the efficiency rating should be composed of two separate evaluations: basic program transportation efficiency and special education transportation efficiency. However, this is not possible since the school district accounting system does not separate these costs. (Requiring districts to separate these costs would be a significant multiplier of bookkeeping workload.)

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 4 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] districts with a rating less than 90 percent and an additional in-depth review will be conducted as the RTC and district schedules allow. As required by statute, the results of reviews will be reported to the Washington State Legislature in December of each year. Districts will be provided with the opportunity to respond to the RTC review and those responses will be included in the legislative report along with details of any actions that school districts have taken to improve efficiency. In many ways, the most important evaluation will come in the comparison of year-to-year changes in a district’s efficiency rating. If a district is taking actions to improve their operational efficiency, one would expect the year-to-year change in the published efficiency rating to be positive. However, due to the relative nature of the system, in order for a district to show an increase in efficiency rating, the changes they implement must provide a greater relative improvement than the improvements to efficiency undertaken by the efficiency cohort districts used to establish the target district. As district workload and expenditure characteristics change from year to year, the particular districts included in the efficiency cohort will change. A good example to show the time required to improve efficiency ratings would be to examine bell time schedules. In many cases, the greatest potential change in operations to improve efficiency will be restructuring school bell times. But because changing bell times has a significant impact on parents, students and district staff, these changes must be undertaken in a manner that provides an opportunity for involvement of all parties. In some cases, changes are subject to constraints in current bargaining agreements. Thus, some districts will find that even once potential efficiency improvements have been identified; it may take significant time to implement those changes. Changes in bell times typically are made on a school year basis. The disruption involved in changes in calendars and schedules is generally too extensive to permit such modifications in the middle of a school year. Since the initial rating release is in the second half of the 2012–13 school year, even in the best case, bell time changes will not be implemented until the beginning of the 2013–14 school year. As a result, the next release of efficiency ratings (March 2014) will not reflect improvements resulting from bell time restructuring. More typically, perhaps, would be for the evaluation and decision on bell times to be made during the 2013–14 school year and implemented with the beginning of the 2014–15 school year. This would result in the efficiency rating released in March of 2016 reflecting the impact of the bell time changes … a three year delay. The use of other measures of efficiency, generally known as “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs) may be important to demonstrate improvement in cases where the efficiency cohort has changed from year to year. KPI’s are also important as a method for districts that are rated at 100 percent efficiency to conduct a self-analysis review. The KPIs are also useful to review those districts that are rated at 100 percent efficiency due to their unique characteristics. If a district has one or more site characteristics whose values are calculated as significantly unique, there will be no comparable districts to provide appropriate efficiency cohorts. The result is that the district is given a default rating of 100 percent. For all of these reasons, the efficiency rating system should be seen as a long-term (multiple-year) tool for school districts to use for improving their transportation operations.

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Review Methodology The approach used for the 2013 (initial) review of a school district’s transportation program involves four primary parts: 1. Determining and evaluating the relative efficiency results from the Target Resource Model; 2. Determining and evaluating the key performance indicators (KPI) from the data already provided by a school district to attempt to identify where the primary efficiency concerns may reside and to establish a baseline for future evaluation; 3. Conducting a meeting with school district personnel to review the answers to an online questionnaire (a copy of the district’s completed questionnaire is provided in Appendix II), to gain the perspective of those on the “inside” of the program, to review district specific data, and to review with school district staff the relative efficiency ratings and KPIs; and 4. Providing a draft copy of the report to school district staff, providing an opportunity for school district staff to comment on the report, and providing any appropriate response to school district questions. The online questionnaire was designed to require a minimum amount of staff time, while providing the RTC with the information required in evaluating the impact of the district’s transportation policies, expenditures, logistics and operations on the efficiency of the district’s transportation system. These four terms (policies, expenditures, logistics and operations) are described in more detail in Section Three of this report. For the 2013 Efficiency Rating Reviews, all districts were requested to complete the online survey in order to establish the best practices of districts that are rated as efficient, besides those districts involved in the review process. Using this process, each district’s transportation program is evaluated by quantifying the key indicators of performance as these relate to the efficient use of both state fiscal resources and the number of school buses used in transporting district students. As resources are available, the RTCs will provide a more subjective assessment of the district’s transportation operations through direct observation and interaction with the school district staff responsible for the administration and management of the transportation program.

Section One: Relative Efficiency Rating

The STARS efficiency rating system uses a type of linear programming called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The system was developed to be used as a tool for school districts to improve the efficiency of their transportation operations. The results returned include an efficiency rating based on a comparison of the district to a mathematically constructed target district’s expenditures and a rating based on the number of buses operated. Many times the two ratings are identical. If the ratings are different, the overall

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 6 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] efficiency rating used by STARS is the higher of the two and this is the rating shown on the STARS Efficiency Detail Report. During the analysis, districts are broken into quartiles based on total student ridership count (combined AM plus PM) to ensure that the efficiency cohorts only include those districts of a similar size. The quartile breakout for the 2011–12 school year is: 1st Quartile 224 or fewer student riders 2nd Quartile 225 to 799 student riders 3rd Quartile 800 to 2993 student riders 4th Quartile 2994 or more student riders The efficiency process uses the same data set as the STARS funding system, with the exception that the efficiency system includes the number of route buses operated. However, the statistical process used in the funding system is a regression analysis not DEA. Since the two statistical processes are different, there are likely to be examples of districts being fully funded (where the calculated allocation is 100 percent of the prior year expenditures) and the efficiency rating not being 100 percent. Likewise, there will be examples where districts are rated at 100 percent efficiency and the funding system does not provide 100 percent of the district’s expenditures. This is a result of two different statistical systems being used for these calculations. The 2013 relative efficiency score for the Xxxxxx School District was XX.X%. The Efficiency Detail Report including the cohort districts and predicted resource requirements is provided in Appendix I.

RTC Analysis and Comments

The regional transportation coordinator reviewed the data on the Efficiency Detail Report with district staff. XXXX School District is in the X Quartile and has X districts identified as efficiency cohorts. In the 2011–12 school year, the district reported operating XX buses to transport a total student ridership count (combined AM plus PM) of XXX with expenditures of $xxx,xxx.xx. The efficiency calculation identified target expenditures for XXXXX of $xxx,xxx.xx while operating xx buses.

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The development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for student transportation is a current topic of national concern. Several national organizations are involved with attempting to determine a core set of KPIs that can be used to evaluate and compare any school district’s transportation operation. This work is progressing slowly due to the volunteer nature of the effort and the existence of extreme state-to-state variations in required service levels, school district size variation and expenditure reporting requirements. Key Performance Indicators are sometimes referred to as “benchmarks”. The current view within the industry is that the term benchmark has connotations of being a one-size-fits-all standard that provides a hard quantitative line between efficient and inefficient transportation operations. This may be appropriate in some system analysis; however, actual student transportation operational efficiency is subject to many conditions totally outside the control of school districts. For instance, the population density of the district and the geographic distribution of students may place severe constraints on the district’s operational efficiency. As an example, in a rural district there may be one student living a great distance up a canyon or isolated highway. The district has no choice but to send a bus to provide the required access to a public education, regardless of the impact on their budget or efficiency score. Similarly, a special education student may legally require expensive transportation service. Two districts with otherwise similar environmental conditions may vary in their relative efficiency rating or KPI numbers due to situations such as these. KPIs by themselves do not reveal the existence of these extenuating factors (nor does the STARS Efficiency Rating), when a KPI is used to compare one district to another in isolation. The primary strength of KPIs is when they are used over time to provide an ongoing method of evaluating the district’s transportation operations. Year to year review of the basic statistics revealed by the KPIs are an essential part of evaluating the status of the transportation department’s performance. A full list of all suggested KPIs would overwhelm the reader with statistics of questionable worth. For the purposes of this review, consideration will be limited to three KPIs that are among the most widely recognized as critical indicators. These are: 1. Basic program riders per basic program bus; 2. Special education riders per special education bus; and 3. Overall cost per rider. Some additional description of these individual KPIs may help to clarify their relevance and impact on a district’s efficiency rating: 1. Basic Program Riders per Basic Program Bus The number of basic program riders per basic program bus is a key measure of efficiency. For calculating the riders per bus, the total student ridership count is

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 8 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] divided by two in order to more closely reflect actual student loads per bus. The number of buses used is as reported in the STARS routing data. This KPI is one that has a fairly widely recognized “benchmark” value of 100. This assumes a two-tier system with ~40 middle/high and ~60 elementary. Large school districts with high student density will be able to achieve higher riders per bus values much easier than small or rural districts where geographic constraints may make achieving a count this high impossible. In particular, in many small or rural districts the elementary school, the middle school and the high school all have the same bell time. This allows bus routes in remote areas to pick up all grades simultaneously and reduce costs. As a result, the total basic program student count per basic bus can never reach the “benchmark” of 100, since that number is only achievable with multiple routing. 2. Special Education Riders per Special Education Bus The number of special education riders on a special education bus will vary significantly from district to district based on the individual student needs required to be served by the district. As in the basic riders KPI, the total special education student ridership count (combined AM plus PM) is divided by two and the bus count is as reported in the STARS route data. Also similar to the previous KPI is the fact that larger districts in urban settings will be more easily able to achieve higher rider per bus counts. The typical requirement for special education routes is to provide door-to-door service which may severely constrain the total number of riders able to be served per bus. The national guideline on special needs riders per bus is ten … with the assumption that this reflects a two-tier system. This would place the average student load per route at five … reflecting the longer per student loading time and the wider geographical distribution of stops. Additionally, there is a state guideline established by Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 392-172A-02095 that school districts should, when possible, limit the one-way transportation times for special education students to 60 minutes. A district may also have one or more students requiring individual transportation (without other students) due to the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) requirement. Greater inclusion of special needs students onto basic education buses is to be encouraged. Greater inclusion will result in fewer overall special education routes (reducing expenditures), but may result in lower special riders per special bus ratios … since the remaining special needs students may demand a higher level of individualized service. Overall, this KPI category is one that should be carefully evaluated to ensure that student needs are accommodated. 3. Overall Cost per Rider This KPI provides the base information on what the district is spending to transport each student to school. Again, the total student ridership count (combined AM plus

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 9 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] PM) is divided by two in order to reflect an assumed cost per student. The challenge with this category is that the data provided to the state in school district annual financial reports does not allow the cost per student by program category (basic or special). Special education students typically will generate a significantly higher cost per student due to fewer students per bus, greater distances between stops and longer ride distances. Districts that are able to break out costs by program category are encouraged to do so for the additional benefit it will provide to the district in their self-evaluation of both their special and basic route costs. An additional KPI that provides a good indicator of year-to-year operational efficiency is “Salary and Benefits as a Percentage of the Transportation Budget”. School bus driver salaries and benefits typically make up the overwhelming majority of the expenditures in the Transportation Operations budget (Program 99). Reviewing the percentage of the total cost of salaries and benefits can provide indications regarding salary structure and maintenance costs. For instance, providing a more generous salary structure will result in a higher percentage of salaries, while having a very old fleet of buses may result in higher than typical maintenance costs as reflecting in higher expenditures on mechanic salaries and higher costs in supplies. Due to allowable variation in the accounting process for removing non-to-from trip costs from Program 99 – Transportation, the use of this KPI can only be effectively used within a district to evaluate the district’s expenditures on a year-to- year basis. For comparison during this process, the Basic Program Rider per Bus, the Special Education Riders per Bus and the Cost per Student categories were broken out by quartiles and the average values (rounded up) found were:

KPI: Basic Riders KPI: Special Ed Riders KPI: Cost Per per Basic Bus per Special Ed Bus Student Quartile 1 18 1 $2,723.33 Quartile 2 36 5 $1,505.09 Quartile 3 58 9 $1,066.14 Quartile 4 84 9 $1,001.00

In all three KPIs, total student counts (combined AM plus PM) are divided by two. To further provide comparison with similar districts, a KPI cohort was developed. This cohort is based on sorting all school districts by transportation expenditures and selecting the ten districts above and below the district under evaluation. To this group is added any of the cohorts identified in the Efficiency Detail Report not already included. The resulting group is referred to as the KPI cohort. The district under review is then compared within this group by sorting by each KPI. These charts are provided as Appendix III.

KPI Analysis and Comments

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 10 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] The Regional Transportation Coordinators will review their analysis of the district’s KPI’s during the initial interview process. Their comments and analysis regarding the district’s KPIs are included here, along with an opportunity for the district to provide any response or comments.

1. Basic program riders per basic program bus

RTC Analysis and Comments

In the 2011–12 school year, XXXX School District transported a prorated basic program student count of XX students on XX buses, resulting in an average student load of xx. This compares to an average basic program student load of xx across all the Quartile districts.

XXXX School District has xx districts in their KPI cohort and ranks xxth in the Basic Program Riders per Basic Bus KPI within their KPI cohort. For the data in chart form, please see Appendix III, Page 2.

(insert any additional comments)

2. Special education riders per special education bus

RTC Analysis and Comments

In the 2011–12 school year, XXXX School District transported a prorated special education student count of XX students on XX buses, resulting in an average student load of xx. This compares to an average special education student load of xx across all the Quartile districts.

XXXX School District has xx districts in their KPI cohort and ranks xxth in the Special Education Riders per Special Education Bus KPI. [RTC note: For 1st Quartile districts, add: “Due to the smaller student enrollment of 1st Quartile districts, many districts are not reporting any students requiring specialized

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 11 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] transportation. As a result, the use of this KPI for 1st Quartile districts is of minimal analytical value.”] For the data in chart form, please see Appendix III, Page 3.

(insert any additional comments)

3. Overall cost per rider

RTC Analysis and Comments

In the 2011–12 school year, XXXX School District reported a cost per rider of $xxxx.xx compared to the average cost of $xxxx.xx across all X Quartile districts.

XXXX has xx districts in their KPI cohort and ranks xxth in the Cost Per Student KPI. For the data in chart form, please see Appendix III, Page 4. [RTC note: For 1st Quartile districts, add if appropriate: “It may be helpful for Xxxxx to determine the cost of the special education route(s) to be able to evaluate what their cost per student would be without the special education required route. This may provide a more equitable comparison with other 1st Quartile districts.”

(insert any additional comments)

4. Salary and benefits as a percentage of the transportation budget

As noted above, the percentage of the transportation budget made up of salary and benefits is not able to be used to compare district to district at this time. However, the district is encouraged to track this value from year to year while maintaining a static accounting process. This will provide a means of assessing future performance.

RTC Analysis and Comments

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Introduction to the School District Interview Process

Section Three provides the initial results of a more detailed evaluation. This includes a review of the online survey. Guidance for properly answering the questions was provided in OSPI’s Efficiency Review Memorandum (M008–13). The majority of questions were designed to be answered as either yes/no or a short response to minimize the additional workload required by the review. During the initial meeting, the RTC reviewed the responses with district staff. Many of the questions were designed to show what transportation service is being provided by the district and to promote discussion between district administrative staff regarding the cost of providing specific categories of transportation. The question that districts should continue to evaluate and discuss regarding each program area is “how much does providing this transportation service cost?” The questions are grouped according to the four primary functional areas of review: . Transportation Policies and Procedures . Transportation Expenditures . Transportation Logistics . Transportation Operations Immediately following this introduction is a definition of these areas and an explanation on how each is related to transportation efficiency. After the definitions are the RTC analysis and comments, and any identified opportunities for improvement to consider in order to improve the efficiency of the school district’s student transportation program.

District Transportation Policies and Procedures Policies are the desired high level outcomes as articulated by the school district board of directors. The policies are typically one or more general statements that establish who is to receive transportation, and the nature of the quality and level of service that is to be provided. From the board policies, the school district administration may craft requirements that prescribe the specific constraints and standards that need to be met in order to achieve the policy objectives. Fundamentally, these increase the granularity of the policies by interpreting the intention. For example, the policies may state that students shall be provided with the shortest ride times necessary to provide safe, reliable, and efficient transportation. The administrative requirements may then define “shortest”, for example, as being a ride time no longer than 60 minutes. From the administration requirements, the transportation department will develop specific standard operating procedures that detail the “who – what – when – where – how” steps that the department must execute in order to meet the policy and administrative requirements. Formally documented policies and operating procedures are the key to a successful transportation program. In essence, these define the core questions of how much, what type, and what quality transportation service does the school district require. Policies define the “what” that will dictate the “how” concerning transporting students. Typically,

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 13 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] the higher the level of service, the higher the cost will be or the more buses that will be required (or both). For instance, a system that was operating with a standard that limits the maximum scheduled time a student can spend on a bus to 20 minutes would require significantly more buses than a district whose policies permit a maximum one hour ride.

District Transportation Expenditures The transportation expenditures as reported in the school district’s F-196 Annual Financial Statement should reflect the true cost of operating the district’s transportation system. It is important to ensure that all the costs associated with to-and-from transportation are correctly reported. For example, extra-curricular transportation costs, which are not part of the statutory definition of to-and-from transportation, should be fully billed out to the appropriate program. All districts should pay close attention to annual modifications to the school district accounting procedures as efforts are made to change the reporting requirements in order to have the F-196 expenditures accurately describe the true cost of to-and-from transportation operations in a standard manner for all school districts. Nationally, transportation costs typically represent three to five percent of the total budget of a school district. As such, transportation represents a significant element of the cost of district support operations. Importantly, due to its malleable nature, it can also easily balloon out of control. To keep these costs in check, it is necessary to evaluate them systemically. Typically, staff salaries and benefits will consist of the overwhelming majority of transportation expenditures. Since salary and benefit costs are such a large share of overall transportation costs, it is important to evaluate the current salary and benefit structure. Setting school bus driver salary levels is a careful balancing act between setting salaries high enough to maintain staffing levels and minimize initial driver training costs, while not so high that the district’s costs are inflated. Ideally, evaluating expenditures should include breaking out the cost of providing basic program transportation from special program transportation. However, this review process does not include a requirement to break out these costs, since in many districts this would require significant additional staff time. Instead, evaluation of the cost of basic program and special program transportation will be inferred through the analysis of the average student loads of basic and special program buses. Transportation Logistics Transportation logistics includes the entire process of route planning and management. This includes strategic planning, such as establishing optimal bus loading targets and maximizing trip assignments to each bus, as well as the daily data integration and maintenance required to assign students to stops, create and add (or delete) stops and similar tasks. An important component of route planning looks to the arrangement of bell times that support the efficient use of multi-trip bus assignments. Less frequently, it includes attendance boundary configurations or the location of centralized programs serving the needs of special education students. Designing efficient and cost effective school bus routes is the single most important factor in determining the efficiency of any given student transportation operation. It requires

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 14 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] evaluating and organizing a wide range of independent but related variables into a system that is both comprehensible and accurate. In all transportation operations, these competing and, at times, contradictory factors must be managed to develop efficient and cost effective bus routes. These factors include: environmental constraints, external mandates, internal mandates, and operational decisions. To achieve efficiency and cost effectiveness in a transportation operation, there are two primary objectives that must be met. The first objective is to fill the bus to the greatest extent possible, a concept known as simple capacity utilization. The second objective is to reuse each bus on as many individual runs or trips as possible. This concept is known as route linking or pairing. Effective management of these two concepts allows a transportation operation to “spread” its primary overhead costs, the school bus and the school bus driver, over the greatest number of transported students. Designing, managing, analyzing, auditing, and updating the school bus routes should represent the overwhelming majority of the transportation administrative activities. Effective management of routing and scheduling is also the key factor influencing the satisfaction of users of transportation services (students, parents and school building administrations).

Transportation Operations Transportation operations are the organizational processes used to manage and run the transportation program on a daily basis. There are two primary subcomponents in any student transportation organization: fleet support and busing operations. Fleet support includes the technicians (aka mechanics), equipment and supplies necessary to maintain, fuel and clean the vehicles used to transport students. Busing operations consist of the staff, equipment and supplies needed to plan, manage, and control all components of the transportation operation, from strategic route planning to daily dispatch control. In short, operations are where all the threads of transportation come together to keep the operation working smoothly and effectively. A poorly maintained fleet will result in significantly higher repair costs, much lower reliability, and a potential for increased safety risks. Conversely, over-maintaining a fleet with more technicians than necessary and excessive preventive maintenance will quickly drive up costs with no material benefit. Fuel and parts are expensive and require careful control to avoid shrinkage or loss. Operations are critical from the vantage point of both efficiency and effectiveness. It is administratively intensive, since schedules must be met and changes communicated in an obviously fluid and mobile environment. Without adequate staff and technology, communication quickly breaks down and schedules are disrupted or poorly planned. However, too much staff results in little if any benefit, and may add substantially to personnel costs.

District Transportation Policies and Procedures

Analysis and Comments

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 15 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] [RTC note: If the district is providing transportation for out of district ‘choice’ students, include: “The district is providing “choice” transportation for students residing in the Xxxxxx School District who are attending Xxxxxx. This practice is not uncommon for small districts; however, districts should carefully consider overall costs compared with generated revenue.”]

Opportunities for Improvement

[RTC note: If the district is providing transportation for out of district ‘choice’ students, include: “Xxxxxxx should do a cost/benefit analysis of providing the choice transportation from the Xxxxxxx School District.”]

District Transportation Expenditures

Analysis and Comments

The district should watch for coming changes to the accounting system impacting the process of how trip costs are charged to programs. It may be helpful to calculate the actual cost of non-to-from transportation to ensure that charges to programs accurately reflect district costs for non-to-from trips.

Note to RTCs: When appropriate include: “The district reported expenditures of $xxx,xxx.xx for required McKinney-Vento homeless transportation in the 2011–12 school year.”

Opportunities for Improvement

Cost per student values split out by basic program and special program are extremely helpful in self-evaluation of year-to-year performance. The district should evaluate the effort involved in breaking out these costs and track these costs year-to-year, if feasible. (RTC note: if the district is already doing so, commend them and encourage them to continue)

Transportation Logistics

Analysis and Comments

(RTC Note: Let’s put discussion of geographic and roadway constraints only in the next section under “Geographic Constraints”)

Opportunities for Improvement

Transportation Operations

Analysis and Comments

DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 16 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] [RTC note: where applicable: “Like many school districts, Xxxxxx does not have the facility or staff to perform all maintenance on site. This can increase maintenance costs reported on the F-196, due to the time required to take the bus to another location. However, the fleet size would not likely justify spending the money to develop the infrastructure to provide these services on site, let alone being able to retain adequately trained staff to perform the complex services required by current buses. The district should continue to monitor and evaluate their costs and the options for service delivery, as conditions change over time.]

Opportunities for Improvement

Efficiency Constrains and Facts

This section provides an opportunity for the school district to describe any unique or unusual characteristics that are thought to impact the operations of the transportation operation. These unusual characteristics are referred to as constraints. The four categories of constraints are geographic, legal, inter-district, and intra-district. An example of a geographic constraint would be for the Columbia River to bisect the district. Legal constraints would include required transportation for a special education student to access appropriate services provided at an out-of-district location. An example of an inter-district constraint would be where a non-high district is providing transportation services for their non-elementary students and is faced with bell times in the high school district that are inefficient, but outside the non-high district’s control. An example of intra-district constraint would be a school board policy to allow each principal to independently establish the bell times for their building.

This section also provides an opportunity for districts to document unique efforts to increase efficiency that may not have been included elsewhere. These are generally referred here to as “efficiency facts” and are provided within the same four categories.

Geographic Constraints and Efficiency Facts

[RTC Note: where applicable: “The district is located in an area with significant geographic constraints created by bodies of water (list). Roadway network connectivity is significantly impacted by …. .]

Legal Constraints and Efficiency Facts

Inter-district Constraints and Efficiency Facts

Intra-district Constraints and Efficiency Facts

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DRAFT DOCUMENT --- NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Page 18 2013 Transportation Efficiency Review [Xxxxx School District] Section Four: School District Comments

This section provides an opportunity for school districts to respond to the regional transportation coordinator review process, the identified areas for possible improvement or further analysis and general comments regarding the efficiency review system. School district comments are not edited by the regional coordinator and will be included in OSPI’s final report to the legislature. If the district asks questions within the text of their comments, any RTC response will be provided on a separate line and identified with the leading phrase: “RTC response:”

The following areas for comments are provided as an aid to content development, but districts should not feel constrained to limit comment to these categories.

District Transportation Policies and Procedures

District Transportation Expenditures

Transportation Logistics

Transportation Operations

Geographic Constraints and Efficiency Facts

Legal Constraints and Efficiency Facts

Inter-district Constraints and Efficiency Facts

Intra-district Constraints and Efficiency Facts

General Comments

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