Brockton schools report $11 million spent on private transportation; superintendent outlines fixes and a plan to return to FinCom in April

Superintendent of Schools Priya Taheleani told the Brockton Finance Committee on March 17 that the school district has spent nearly $11 million on student transportation from July 1 through March 10 and identified immediate and longer-term steps intended to reduce costs and improve oversight.

Taheleani said the district is transporting 9,177 students overall and that private transportation costs from July 1, 2024, through March 10, 2025, total about $4.5 million for categories that include door-to-door and out-of-district routes. She added the district transports 839 students to selected out‑of‑district placements and 1,593 students on door-to-door routes. "It is clear to me that the integration ... of transportation in the school into the school department has been both challenging and at times flawed," Taheleani said.

The superintendent placed the current shortfall in the context of district appropriations and state rules: the city provided roughly $17 million in non‑net‑school‑spending appropriations this year, and Taheleani said the district had originally projected roughly $19.5 million in transportation costs, leaving a gap the district has been working to close. She emphasized that net school spending (Chapter 70) cannot be used for routine student home‑to‑school transportation and said the district will reclassify certain special‑education tuition expenses to free up circuit‑breaker funds for transportation. "We do have approximately…