Illegal school bus use

To the editor:

As I travel around South Kitsap daily I notice multiple pieces of private property that have South Kitsap School District buses parked on them.

I believe taxpayers give SKSD almost $7.82 million every year to fund bus service for students to and from school for 156 days. Bus transportation is defined as: pick up at an assigned spot in the morning and delivering students to assigned schools. Then students are picked up and delivered back to their assigned dropoff points at the end of the school day.

Then buses are returned to the bus barn for refueling and any needed repairs or maintenance.

Perhaps the school board can explain why drivers have buses parked at their homes? Taxpayers didn’t intend any part of the almost $7.2 million for buses to be used as personal transportation. This very specifically means: that drivers will use their personal vehicles to and from the bus parking area to drive their assigned routes. Drivers are not authorized to use their buses as personal transportation to and from their homes. Likewise, it is illegal for any school district to pay bus drivers gas money to drive to and from their homes every day.

To refresh memories that practice was stopped decades ago via a court action. I anticipate this bus issue will be corrected and end very quickly.

Larry Mann

Port Orchard