Smithtown gets chance to overturn bus vote

Anna Kusi said she never worried that the Smithtown school district would curtail busing its students.

But when school opened last week, Kusi took her daughter Anjali, 5, to her first day of kindergarten, because she was no longer eligible for the bus. Now Kusi regrets not voting in May, when district residents decided to stop busing 1,500 students.

"I was shocked, because I thought she would get the bus," Kusi said, recalling how she felt about the May referendum.

Kusi and other Smithtown residents will get a chance Monday to overturn the May vote. If approved, the referendum would restore last year's transportation policy, which allowed all but 700 of the district's 11,467 students to take the bus to school.

The May proposition, which passed by about 800 votes out of 7,000 cast, tripled the number of students who are ineligible for transportation to more than 2,200 this year.

Busing will resume by Oct. 11 if the referendum passes.

The new vote follows an outcry from parents, who jammed school board meetings to protest the outcome of the May election. District officials say the reduced busing would save more than $800,000, but parents say many local streets are too dangerous for children to traverse.

At a public hearing Tuesday night, Troy Rosasco of Head of the Harbor was one of seven people who said they feared the district could not protect children who walk to school.

"I understand that the [school] board needs to find cuts," Rosasco said. "It's just not worth putting the safety of our kids at risk."

Four speakers said they opposed putting the issue up for another vote.

Thomas Fanning, a St. James father whose three children are bused to school, said the decision to hold a second vote was "scary," adding, "I'm trying to save money so I can stay in St. James the rest of my life."

The May referendum eliminated busing for elementary school students who live less than a half-mile from school; extended -- from 1 mile to 11/2 miles -- the distance middle and high school students must live from school to be bused, and reduced, from 20 miles to 15, the maximum distance private school students can live from their schools to get district busing.