School bus fees will rise $200 for students who don’t qualify for the mandated busing areas of town in the 2026-27 school year. School officials will also look at purchasing its own buses, which would be electric.
Increasing school bus fees was one of the steps taken to balance the school budget for Fiscal Year 2027. School officials had to close a $2.5 million gap. This year, students were charged $300 to ride the school bus, with a family cap of $475, said Superintendent Dede Galdston. The School Committee voted to increase the fee to $500, with a family cap of $750. The fees are paid by students who the district are not mandated to provide transportation.
“What we’re proposing is for mandated riders,” Galdston said. “So, anybody who lives two miles or less from the Middle School in grade six, or anybody 1.5 miles or less for the Hosmer Elementary School.”
Watertown Schools’ policy does not require providing school busing for students in seventh grade or above. School Committee member Amy Donohue noted that the district provides busing for an extra half mile above the state’s requirement for elementary school students. Students in the Lowell and Cunniff attendance areas live less than 1.5 miles from school.
The School Committee unanimously approved the fee of $500 with a $750 family cap.
City Council President Mark Sideris, who also sits on the School Committee, said he worries about the cost of busing increasing due to fuel prices.
“I’m concerned that if we have a contract with the transportation company, given the chaos that we have with fuel prices, that there’s a clause in there that says that they can increase them. And even this might not cover that,” Sideris said.
Galdston said that the busing fees do not cover the whole cost of running the buses. In the 2025-26 school year, busing cost nearly $179,000, and fees raised $9,700.
Sideris said he would like to see an analysis for the Watertown Schools to own the buses. Galdston said School officials have already started looking into that option, and if so they would be electric powered buses.
“We, with the assistance of the state, they’re actually helping us to make a plan of what it would be to have our own fleet of buses,” Galdston said. “If you’re going to get buses at this point, it might as well be electric. We’re in that stage, because sooner or later — it’s like with solar buildings — you break even, and then you start to actually save money along the way.”
Sideris said the district must also come up with a back up plan if one of the buses breaks down.
The School Committee also chose an option for how to provide busing.
Four options were considered by the Budget and Finance Subcommittee:
1 – Two buses at each of the schools (the middle school and the Hosmer) with a late bus at the middle school, which is the structure this year. Cost – $306,620
2 – One morning bus and one afternoon bus at WMS and Hosmer, plus a late bus at the middle school. Cost – $148,620
3 – One bus covering both schools in the morning, two buses in the afternoon (one at each school), and the late bus at the middle school. Cost – $106,120
4 – One bus covering all the morning and afternoon routes for both schools.
The fourth option was considered impractical because it would require restructuring of the start and end times for the middle school and the Hosmer.
The third option would only be for the 2026-27 school year, after which the middle school start time will likely change.
This school year, there were 15 mandated riders, and the bus holds 52 students, so there was room for 37 free-paying riders, Galdston said. Because space is limited, for students who are not mandated to be on the bus priority is given to siblings and then to students who are the farthest distance from the school, Galdston said.
The Subcommittee recommended option 3, which was adopted unanimously by the School Committee.
School Committee Chair Kendra Foley said the subcommittee also discussed providing an option for students to only ride in the morning or in the afternoon, because some students at the elementary school attend the Extended Day Program so they don’t ride the bus home. She said there may be some students who get dropped off at school by parents but could ride the bus home.
“I think having that option could potentially create a lot of flexibility for more kids to access the bus and really use the seats in the most effective way possible,” Foley said.