Downers Grove Community School District 58 officials told the board on Sept. 8 that transportation costs have surged since the pandemic and that a centralized interim housing center (IHC) in the county has sharply increased the district’s homeless‑student transportation bill. Chief School Business Official Dr. Greg Harris said district transportation spending rose from about $4.1–$4.4 million in fiscal 2019 to roughly $8.0–$8.1 million in the most recent unaudited year.

“We've been trying to find opportunities with other government entities, for example DuPage County, for support to cover our ballooning homeless transportation costs,” Harris said. He explained the district has a duty under the federal McKinney‑Vento Homeless Assistance Act to transport students who are experiencing homelessness to their home district. Harris said costs tied to the IHC escalated each year — roughly $200,000, $400,000, $800,000 and then about $1.6 million — as families entered and left the center and as the district had to provide rides over longer distances.

Harris and Superintendent Kevin Russell said the county initially used federal COVID relief to open the IHC and did not establish a long‑term funding approach for district transportation costs. Harris said district staff will seek a formal cost‑share request to the county board and that he intends to meet with the county board’s administrative counterpart to outline the district’s “true cost” for transporting students to and from the IHC and for students who remain eligible but relocate outside the district.

Board members discussed other possible remedies. Member Melissa Olczyk said she will raise the issue with LEND (a DuPage County lobbying group) and local chief school business officers to increase MCAT/transportation funding. Russell said he planned to raise the issue with ISBE to explore whether state special funding could be made available when an IHC centralizes a large homeless population within one county, since current McKinney‑Vento cost‑sharing rules create unpredictable annual burdens on districts.

Harris also described a drop in state reimbursement rates (proration) for transportation: recent reimbursements are about 70–73% for regular education routes and 60–63% for special‑education transportation, compared with past years when districts received 90–99% of eligible reimbursement. Harris estimated the district would have received roughly $600,000 more in revenue this year if proration had remained at previous levels.

The board discussed short‑term operational steps the district can take, including renegotiating routes and provider contracts, seeking economies of scale with transportation vendors, and exploring county and state funding avenues. No board action was taken during the meeting on the county or state funding requests; administrators said they would return with formal cost estimates and proposed advocacy steps.