School transportation budget cuts will hit rural districts hardest, local and state officials say, forcing districts to dip into budget reserves to pay for it.

The $248 million budget cut for home-to-school transportation was one of several announced by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday because state revenues did not meet expectations.

The transportation cuts reduce by half the reimbursement that school districts get for providing bus service.

About 20 years ago, the state was paying 80%. Today, it's down to 35%, and the budget cuts announced Tuesday will slice that amount to near 17%, transportation officials say.

The impact is the greatest on rural, poor areas, officials say.

Sierra Unified in Auberry is losing $335 per student, whereas Burbank Unified in Los Angeles County, an urban district, is losing only $10 per student, state documents show.

The budget cuts create "huge inequities," said Sacramento lobbyist Stephen Rhoads of the California Association of School Transportation Officials.

"The cuts are coming from very high-unemployment areas with high numbers of free and reduced lunches," he said.

"I have to get that message out to members of the legislature and make them feel embarrassed."

Rhoads and others are working on a bill that will carve the same savings from the state budget but take money from each district evenly -- about $42 per student in average daily attendance money.

"The state needs to save the money, but there is a better way to do that through a more balanced revenue reduction," said Dave Walrath, a legislative advocate with the Small School Districts Association in Sacramento.

The association will recommend a bill to address the more balanced approach.

But if one isn't signed into law by next month, districts will lose transportation funding at the end of January.

"Let's treat everybody equitably," Walrath said. "It will be a much better way to deal with it."

Kings Canyon Unified School District is losing more than half of its $2 million in state funding, said John Clements, the district's transportation director.

The district covers 600 square miles, from Wilsonia near Kings Canyon National Park to just east of Parlier.

About 44% of the district's 10,000 students take school buses.

"We are not going to stop transporting kids to schools," he said. "The funding will come out of our reserve in our general fund, but that's money" that won't be available for classrooms.

Drawing down budget reserves to cover busing costs could result in larger class sizes, fewer employees or reduced services for students in Kings County's Reef-Sunset Unified School District, said David East, schools superintendent.

The district will lose about $140,000, he said.

"We still have to get kids to school," East said. "We don't have an option for that."

Most employees in the Avenal-based district already cover more than one job, he said, so cuts will be difficult to make.

Southwest Transportation Agency, which partners with 12 rural Fresno County school districts to provide bus service for 7,000 students, has to ask for $500,000 from its member districts to cover the state cuts.

The agency's budget is about $6 million. An average of 80% to 85% of students in the member districts qualify for free and reduced lunches.

"I can only pass it on to the schools," said Kirk Hunter, the agency's general manager.

"This penalizes rural kids, the kids who don't live next to school," he said. "There is no other alternative for them. There is no FAX [Fresno Area Express] bus out here."