North Dakota Code 15.1-27-26.1 – School district transportation of students – Payments
1. Subject to legislative appropriation, the superintendent of public instruction shall pay each school district providing schoolbus transportation in contract schoolbuses or in district-owned and operated schoolbuses, and each school district with students riding commercial buses to and from school within the incorporated limits of a city, the following amounts from state funds:
Terms Used In North Dakota Code 15.1-27-26.1
- Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute means the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- year: means twelve consecutive months. See North Dakota Code 1-01-33
a. For schoolbuses and school vehicles transporting students:
(1) Fifty-two cents per mile [1.61 kilometers] for vehicles that have a capacity of fewer than ten students; and
(2) One dollar and eleven cents per mile [1.61 kilometers] for schoolbuses that have a capacity of ten or more students; and
b. Thirty cents per one-way trip for each student transported.
2. The superintendent of public instruction shall provide per mileage payments if:
a. A school district qualifies to receive payment pursuant to subsection 1; and
b. The school district operates schoolbuses in accordance with state law relating to schoolbus standards and school vehicle driver requirements. A school district shall certify compliance with state law relating to schoolbus standards and school vehicle driver requirements when applying for payment under this section. The superintendent of public instruction may adopt rules governing certification of compliance under this subdivision.
3. Subject to legislative appropriation, the superintendent of public instruction shall reimburse school districts fifty cents per day per mile [1.61 kilometers] one-way for each mile over two miles [3.22 kilometers] for students transported by family transportation in accordance with section 15.1-30-02, according to the distance between the home of the student and the school. The distance must be measured by the route from the front door of the school attended to the front door of the residence of the family of the student according to the most convenient public course traveled.
4. The superintendent of public instruction shall use the latest available student enrollment count in each school district in applying the provisions of this section, with the exception of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, for which the superintendent of public instruction shall calculate each school district’s payment based on the district’s miles and ridership data from the 2018-19 school year or the previous school year, whichever is greater.
5. This section does not authorize the reimbursement of any costs incurred in providing transportation for students to attend extracurricular activities or events.