ABC 7 News - Stafford County Considering School Bus Fees

This idea from Stafford County Virginia, to require school students who ride the bus to pay a fee each year, it just phenomenally stupid, but not for the reasons I have been hearing.

School board members say that many parents and teachers support the idea of paying fees if it means not increasing class size. According to a local news station:

Among the proposed fees is a $100 dollar fee per student or $200 dollars per family for regular bus service. Also being considered is a $50 dollar fee for high school athletics and $75 dollar per-car charge for parking permits.

Exceptions would be made for children of school system employees and for students who get free or reduced lunches.

The impetus behind these fees is that the school board is facing a roughly $12 million shortfall in its funding. Thus the new fees.

On the face of it, it looks like simply another tax, called a user fee, levied upon the residents of a county to pay for the schooling in that county. I, of course, object to such a tax out of simple opposition to taxes.

However, there is a different issue all together. Let us suppose the fee goes forward, what the school has done is failed to address the root problem of the budgetary shortfall that is behind the need for the fees--poor fiscal managementment.

By implementing a user fee or whatever it is called, the school board does not have an incentive to improve the manner in which is handles its finances. The county simply dips into the well for more money from residents, without a question of accountability, without any review of why the school system cannot make due with less.

Thus, the typical response to school problems is to ask for more money. If you don't get it from the federal government, the state government or the country government, the school just gets it from any source--without questioning if the actually need the money.