STOP!
Before your district starts issuing checks to families for payment in lieu of transportation (PILOT) there are some important steps to observe.
- Check with the child’s school of attendance and confirm that they were enrolled for the entire year. If a child was enrolled for only part of the school year, ORC 3327.02 allows you to prorate the payment.
- This is NOT an attendance check – our obligation is to provide PILOT for the year or part of the school year that the child was enrolled.
- Each school year, ODE (now ODEW) publishes the rates for PILOT. As specified in budget law, there is a minimum and a maximum for each school year. These values are based upon data calculations for average cost based upon the aggregated T2 reports submitted by all Ohio School districts.
- For school year 2024-2025, the minimum reimbursement for a full year is $583.62 per child.
- For school year 2024-2025, the maximum reimbursement for a full year is $1,167.72 per child.
- As stated above, you should prorate for enrollments of less than a full year.
- You should use these published rates in your issuance of PILOT contracts for the subsequent year.
- If the contract you entered with your PILOT student families was for the minimum amount, use the amount identified by ODEW as the minimum. If you agreed to another rate, your payment needs to be that amount, provided it is between the minimum and maximum.
- The district’s goal should be to issue these payments after the end of the school year, but still within the same budget year. This will allow your T1 and T2 to match for riders and expenses.
- Funds used for PILOT are not reimbursed by the state. They all come from local funds. You are still required to report them on your T2 report as transportation expenses. The real value of this program is that it allows you to limit your financial exposure for transporting these students – if PILOT is less costly than paying for a bus and driver to transport the students, the district comes out ahead financially.
The final step in closing out the school year is realistically the first step in preparing for next school year. Ask these families if their students will be continuing at their current school for the next school year. This will allow you to inform them in a timely manner of your transportation plan for their child. In most cases, if you declared them impractical to transport in the previous year, you would continue that for subsequent years. In accordance with existing law, we are required to notify them 30 days in advance if you will continue them as impractical transportation / PILOT. You do not need to ask for a new signed waiver agreeing to the impractical resolution, but you will want a new contract in place with them that stipulates the amount to be reimbursed and any other documentation your district may require from them.