New York Mulls $5.8M School Bus Bill To Drop Yeshiva Students at Door
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A $5.8 million proposal being pushed by some Brooklyn lawmakers would order New York school busses to drop yeshiva students much closer to their homes, a new report said.
The Daily News reported that the budget add-on would mandate school busses to drop children off within 600 feet of their homes if they leave school after 4 p.m.
The current rule requires the service only after 5 p.m.
The vast majority of those who would benefit are students at private yeshivas, who enjoy publicly funded school bus service, the paper reported.
“At a time when the city is being forced to do more with less, it is outrageous that the state would create a new unfunded mandate that will benefit a politically powerful special interest group,” Mark Botnick, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, told the paper.
Senate Republicans are pushing the change, with help from Orthodox allies such as Simcha Felder, a conservative Democrat who often sides with the GOP.
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