Champaign resident Mary Spohrer has eight children in the Champaign school district and all are transported to class by Champaign Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD). "They have been riding the buses since before they were born," she said.

But it could become much more expensive for Spohrer to send her children to school on time.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently vetoed Senate Bill 0150, which allowed school districts to be reimbursed for using municipal transportation to transport students. Tom Costello, the assistant managing director of CUMTD, said Champaign and Urbana schools currently pay CUMTD to provide transportation for middle and high school students and are then reimbursed part of those costs by the state. He said this system has been in place for more than 15 years. Costello serves on the board of the Illini Media Company, the parent company of The Daily Illini.

"Rather than running yellow school buses, they use MTD buses on certain routes," Costello said. "It's not much different from operating yellow school buses, because the state pays them to do that, as well. This is efficient and inexpensive for both the school districts and MTD. It's eliminating the duplication of services, so the veto is actually an extremely costly endeavor for the state."

Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Blagojevich vetoed the bill to comply with existing Illinois statutes.

"Technically, right now, it's against Illinois law," Ottenhoff said. "We don't have the same type of oversight in municipal systems as we do on yellow school buses, so we couldn't ensure the same level of safety."

But Spohrer said if she didn't think the mass transit buses were safe, she wouldn't have had her children use them for the 12 years she has been in the district.

Costello also disagreed with how the state read the statute.

"That was their interpretation of that law," he said. "The legislature tried to clarify the language and passed legislation, but that was vetoed."

Dan Casing, an assistant superintendent with Champaign schools, explained the financial ramifications of the veto for the school districts.

"If we don't see any relief from the governor's veto, we will no longer be able to use MTD or we'll have to use MTD without the reimbursement," Casing said. "The prices of buying our own buses or leasing buses from Laidlaw or another company would be more expensive than our plan with MTD."

Casing said 1,200 to 1,500 students use the CUMTD buses, costing $110,000 with a reimbursement of $25,000 to $50,000. With the governor's veto, the school district would still have to pay $110,000, but get no reimbursement if they stayed with CUMTD.

As for the alternative to CUMTD, Casing said it would cost the district at least $600,000 to lease buses with a company such as Laidlaw, and $550,000 to buy and maintain its own buses.

Ottenhoff said the governor understands the financial concerns, but is still dedicated to providing safety for students.

"The state will continue to do whatever it can to help school districts afford and provide the best education for the kids, but it comes down to ensuring that the safety standards of Illinois are upheld," she said.

Costello said that at least for the Champaign-Urbana system, safety standards were very high. Spohrer agreed and said she has been satisfied with CUMTD services.

"I'll be happy to match our safety record with anyone in the state," Costello said. "We train our operators for six weeks. You won't see many systems that train operators for six weeks. Safety is not an issue."

Casing said the school districts are going to see the result of the next legislative session before settling on any alternative to CUMTD.

"Right now we're waiting for the veto session to start and we're hoping there will be some political reconsideration," he said. "We're hoping groups can convince the legislature to override the governor's veto."

— Amara Enyia contributed to this report.