Since the beginning of the school year, there have been 24 stop-arm violations, Warsaw Community Schools Transportation Director said during the Warsaw School Board meeting Monday in his annual bus stop report.
Of the 24 stop-arm violations, WCS staff weren’t able to get plate information on 15 of those violations and submitted nine of those violations to the Prosecutor’s Office.
There are 2,196 students transported to Lakeview and Edgewood middle schools and Warsaw Community High School each day.
Leesburg Elementary has six buses, for a total capacity of 447 students. Madison has seven buses, with a capacity to transport 371 students. Claypool has four buses, with a capacity to transport 244 students. Jefferson has three buses, with a capacity to transport 240 students. Harrison has four buses with two doing double runs, with a capacity to transport 337 students. Washington has three buses, with the capacity to transport 251 students. Eisenhower has four buses doing double runs, with the capacity to transport 348 students. Lincoln has three buses doing double runs, with the capacity to transport 197 students, Fick said. There are nine special needs buses that transport 240 students every day.
There are six stops on state roads, all of which are curbside. Fick said curbside means students do not cross state roads in order to be picked up. There’s one stop on Ind. 25, two on Ind. 15 and three on Ind. 14.
Warsaw Community Schools buses drive 5,400 miles a day and 27,000 per week, Fick said.
He said this year was the best start of the year since he has been at WCS. He has hired three employees in the last week and will start their training.
Later in the meeting, the board held a public hearing for the school corporation’s 2025 budget.
The 2025 budget totals $104,487,194. The operations fund is $27 million. The education fund is $54,070,000. The referendum debt fund is $2,882,000. The debt service fund is $18,835,194. The rainy day fund is $1.7 million.
Chief Financial Officer April Fitterling said there will be no tax increase. The budget will be adopted at 7 p.m. Oct. 21. There were no public comments.
Earlier in the meeting, the board heard about the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) event this year.
Megan Stone, chair of the FMSC MobilePack event, said FMSC will be at the TRAC Oct. 21-24.
Stone came on to the FMSC in 2014 and the first event was held at Madison Elementary School. This year will be the seventh FMSC event.
Last year, the Warsaw FMSC learned in the six previous events, they had packed 5 million meals, which would feed 12,698 children a meal a day for an entire year, Stone said.
Each meal costs only 29 cents, and $106 can provide a child with a meal every day for an entire year. The goal this year is to pack 1 million meals, Stone said.
Registration to volunteer for the event went live Monday and Stone said there are less than 500 volunteer spaces available.
Over 2,000 WCS students will participate in the event.
Community members can register, make donations or purchase Hunger Heroes t-shirts at warsawmobilepack.com. Each school is currently fundraising to send students to the event and individuals can donate directly to the schools’ online fundraising team, according to a news release from WCS.
In other business, the board:
• Heard homecoming is Sept. 27, with the parade starting at 5 p.m.
• Recognized the custodial staff at WCHS.
• Approved accepting a $1,000 donation from Tranzstar Warehouse LLC for the Warsaw Area Career Center and a $1,000 donation from 1st Source Bank for the WCHS band department.