The Toronto Catholic District School Board is providing bus service to thousands of students who don't qualify for it, a decision that's costing more than a million dollars a year and contributing to tardy school bus service, according to a report up for discussion at a committee meeting Thursday evening.

TCDSB policy states that only children who live more than 1,500 metres from their school are eligible for busing.

But the report says more than 7,000 students who live closer than that are being picked up and dropped off by school bus every day. That's more than 25 times the number of so-called non-qualifying students the Toronto District School Board buses.

"If we've got that many students that are being bused that don't fall within policy, either our policy needs to be changed, or we need to be seeing whether these students can be getting to school through alternate means," TCDSB Trustee Jo-Ann Davis told CBC Toronto on Wednesday.

"We're doing things like encouraging walking, we've been working with the city to expand bike lanes so students can be biking to school," said Davis, who is also the board's representative on the consortium that provides school bus service to both the Catholic and public school boards.

One of the reasons why the board is busing non-qualifying students to school, the report states, is concern from some parents that walking to school isn't safe — a concern that Davis said she takes seriously.

TCDSB Trustee Jo-Ann Davis, who also represents the board on the consortium that provides school bus service to Toronto students, says some are being bused because they live close to railway tracks or busy streets. (Gary Morton/CBC News)

"We live in downtown Toronto so there are certain hazards that kids have to be going across, whether that's railway tracks or big streets, they're being bused because there's a perceived safety issue, even if as a board that doesn't follow our policy," said Davis, who's the TCDSB's representative on the consortium that delivers school bus service to both boards in Toronto.

The TCDSB report states that this school year, it will spend $10.7-million more than the provincial education ministry is providing on school bus services.

Added busing costs $1.1-million a year

Busing non-qualifying students costs the TCDSB $1.1-million a year, according to a separate report by board staff late last year.

But that same report warned that forcing those students to find other ways to get to school could tempt parents to send their children to nearby Toronto District School Board schools instead.

"If the service were to be discontinued, there is a potential risk of losing approximately 60% of these students — due to student home addresses being in closer geographic proximity to TDSB schools versus TCDSB schools," the report states.

TDSB allowing far fewer exemptions

By contrast, the Toronto District School Board — with about three times as many students — only busses about 250 non-qualifying students to school, according to statistics from the busing consortium.

Davis said that's in part because the TDSB has three times as many schools, so far fewer students require busing.

She also said that, unlike the TDSB, Catholic school pupils in French immersion and gifted programs fall into the non-qualified category.

Congestion a bigger problem

Although busing non-qualifying students was identified as a contributor to late school bus service, Davis said that's not a big part of the problem.

"The biggest contribution is traffic," she said. "If we could be getting people out of their cars and using public transit, if we could be getting kids to school by public transit, or biking or walking that'd be better for everybody."

The details are part of a summary of the reasons why the board is having so much trouble providing school bus service that's both on time and economically viable, problems that are being felt by boards throughout the GTA.

The report says traffic congestion and problems retaining drivers are big reasons why school bus service is often unreliable and increasingly expensive to provide.

The Ministry of Education is currently holding public consultations aimed at solving the school bus problems. Those consultations wrap up next month.