Plumas Unified Ends General Bus Service for 2026-27

PLUMAS COUNTY — Plumas Unified School District will not run general home-to-school bus routes when classes resume August 19, leaving more families across a mountainous rural county responsible for getting students to campus.

County-appointed administrator Richard DuVarney confirmed the change July 14 in a message to staff, families, and communities posted on the district’s fiscal recovery page. “PUSD will not offer general home-to-school transportation during the 2026–2027 school year,” he wrote. “Transportation will be limited to students whose services are required by law or identified through an individual student plan or program.”

PUSD will keep two large buses and five smaller special education buses. The larger buses may be used for academic field trips and student opportunities, including Plumas to Pacific, Career Technical Education activities, and college exploration trips, DuVarney wrote. District projections show three routes carrying about 35 students next year, roughly half the cost of the current program. The district will not transport students to athletic events during the coming school year.

The reduction is one piece of a recovery plan built around a $9.5 million structural deficit, a gap PUSD has described as roughly 22% of its annual budget. DuVarney named the closure of Pioneer Elementary School, the Quincy Elementary campus shuttered under the recovery plan, along with staffing reductions and the transportation changes, as the most substantial cuts.

Buses were an early target. The district’s first interim financial report for 2025-26, approved December 15, listed elimination of the transportation department as a possible $3 million savings. Service was already shrinking by then. PUSD ran eight general education routes in 2024-25, then cut to six during the past school year. Effective January 5, three areas were consolidated to a single route each: one for Quincy, Cromberg, and Meadow Valley, a second for Indian Valley, and a third for Graeagle, Delleker, and Portola. Chester-area and special education routes were unchanged.

The district reported ridership at 241 out of roughly 1,500 students in 2025-26, down from 348 two years earlier. Transportation nonetheless consumed about 15% of the unrestricted general fund operating budget, and the district noted that the program cost more than all classified salaries districtwide combined. PUSD attributed the rising expense to unfilled driver positions covered through extra duty and overtime, and to an aging fleet that required substantial investment to stay safe and compliant.

The end of general service was formalized earlier this year. DuVarney approved a fiscal stabilization plan February 11, along with layoff notices for 21 teachers and 116 classified employees, and the district finalized 32 layoffs at a special meeting May 11. Interim chief business official Stephanie Shatto presented a new home-to-school transportation plan March 11 under which transportation from home to school would be provided only to special education students beginning in fall 2026, with parents responsible for getting children to and from school sites. DuVarney approved the plan.

Opposition surfaced at public meetings through the spring. At an April 15 meeting in Portola, county office of education board member Cindy Crim read aloud a letter from District 2 Supervisor Kevin Goss. “Our county is a large rural county which presents many challenges on a good day to get to school,” Goss wrote. “I get fiscal challenges. We constantly are dealing with them at the county level but balancing a budget on the backs of parents and students is the absolute wrong way to go about this.”

The financial collapse behind the cuts became public in December 2024, when a report projected a $2 million shortfall. The gap grew into a recurring $9.5 million deficit, attributed to expenses outpacing revenue for several years, a one-time reserve transfer used in 2024-25 to avoid an immediate cash crisis, and a decade of declining enrollment during which staffing levels held steady or increased.

The district board requested an emergency advance from the state April 28, 2025. Assembly Bill 121, signed June 27, 2025, authorized the apportionment and placed PUSD in state receivership. The board was notified soon after that the Plumas County superintendent of schools had assumed all legal rights, duties, and powers of the governing board, and DuVarney, previously of Tehama County, began work on October 6. PUSD drew $8.5 million of the $20 million emergency loan September 2, 2025; without it, Shatto told the board that fall, the district could not have met payroll or paid vendors. Repayment begins in November 2027 at about $600,000 per year for 30 years.

PUSD’s outlook has since improved. The proposed 2026-27 budget presented June 17 projects $35.6 million in revenue, up from $34.5 million, and an ending fund balance of $15.86 million on June 30, 2027. Projected enrollment is 1,472, a 5.09% decline from the prior year. “PUSD will have a balanced budget for the next three years. We solved the structural deficit spending,” Shatto said.

To leave receivership, the district must complete all recommendations and resolve findings in five areas reviewed by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. County Superintendent Andrea White is scheduled to present the second round of required reporting in September. General bus routes and athletic transportation are not funded in the 2026-27 budget.