Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Friday that delivers $1 million more dollars to the San Juan Unified School District but takes $900,000 from Elk Grove Unified.

The bill restores $248 million in midyear cuts to school transportation. Legislators had proposed the bill after opponents of the transportation cuts called them unequal and unfair, especially to rural districts where students travel miles to school.

Indeed, the transportation cuts took little to nothing from some school districts while others, such as Amador County, lost about $172 per student.

Now the pendulum is swinging the other direction. The bill will now take about $42 per student from state funding to schools.

"The biggest winners are the real small districts," Sacramento County schools chief David Gordon said.

In Sacramento County, Elverta Joint Union, Arcohe Union and River Delta Union – all districts of fewer then 2,000 students – will collectively save about $300,000 now that the bill has been signed.

Arcohe, a 470-student district in a rural area south of Elk Grove, was slated to lose $153 per student in bus funds. The $42 cut per pupil will save the district $51,000, Gordon said.

It was the plight of small rural districts that drove legislators to draft the bill, Gordon said. "These districts were faced with a double whammy. No. 1, they really needed transportation, and No. 2, it's a much bigger part of their budget and they had fewer things to cut."

Locally, the bill results in more winners than losers.

Amador County schools will lose about $176,000 in state funding for student attendance, instead of the $722,000 it had expected to lose in transportation costs, according to calculations by The Bee.

"We believe it is a much more equitable solution," said Tim Zearley, interim superintendent.

The rural district of 4,200 students has steep, winding, sharp-curved roads making the elimination of busing a dangerous proposition, said district officials.

San Juan Unified will be a big winner.

It expected to lose about $2.5 million in midyear transportation cuts. Now, after calculating the loss of $42 per student and the return of transportation money, the district will come out $1 million better than it had expected, said Trent Allen, district spokesman.

A change in funding won't affect Sacramento City Unified much.

It calculates the bill's signing means it will have to cut $250,000 less than it had expected from its budget this year.

Officials at Twin Rivers Unified are still crunching the numbers, but say they expect the result of the bill's signing to be "a wash" for the district.

This legislation isn't good news for all school districts. Some – those that have severely cut busing or that have little transportation money because of a state formula that leaves them out in the cold – will see big losses.

Elk Grove Unified is one of them. The bill's signing means $900,000 less for the district. The 61,500-student district was to lose $1.5 million in transportation funding, but now faces a $2.4 million cut in daily attendance funding.

Folsom Cordova Unified also expects to take an additional cut in funding with the bill's signing.

The district of 19,500 students would have missed out on $950,000 in transportation money, but now faces $1.56 million in cuts to daily attendance funding – a $600,000 loss.

"While we're relieved it doesn't cut transportation, it levies more of a burden on all of our students," said Stephen Nichols, district spokesman.

Natomas Unified, with just under 10,000 students, will take a hit as well. The district, which had been facing a $69,000 cut to transportation, is now looking at losing $400,000, said Doug Crancer, chief financial officer.

"It isn't a fair solution for everybody, but the feeling was that this was fairer for the largest number of districts," Gordon said of the bill.

Next year, it may be up to districts to decide if they want to fund transportation. The governor is proposing a block-grant funding system that would make funding of most busing optional.

Almost all school districts already subsidize transportation, even if they provide only state and federally mandated busing.

San Juan, for example, spends about $9 million a year to provide only mandated transportation. The state pays the district about $5 million a year for transportation, leaving San Juan to subsidize busing to the tune of $4 million, Allen said.

Sacramento City Unified already has made a move to cut busing, having voted last week to eliminate all but mandatory busing next school year, said Gabe Ross, district spokesman. The district has been providing busing only to elementary school students.

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Call The Bee's Diana Lambert, (916) 321-1090. Follow her on Twitter @dianalambert.

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