For years, school officials have been lamenting the state's underfunding of transportation.

Without adequate funding from the state, they say, districts must devote more and more of their local levy dollars to get kids to school.

One of their loudest charges: the state doesn't reimburse districts for transporting students whose homes or daycares lie outside a one-mile radius from school. And instead of calculating the actual route mileage, the distance is measured as a direct line from school to home or daycare. Or, in the colloquial, "as the crow flies."

Actually, says Allan Jones with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state does provide some money to bus kids within the one-mile radius. But not much.

Jones, director of pupil transportation, says the state gives districts some funding based on the total number of kids in kindergarten through through fifth grade within the one-mile radius.

The original intent was to help districts defray the cost of transporting youngsters who faced hazardous walking conditions, even though they lived close to school.

But it's a lower rate than what the state funds for students living outside the one-mile minimum. And the districts don't have to have hazardous walking conditions to get the money. They don't even have to use the money to transport kids within that radius.

Here's how Jones explains it, and the "crow flies" business in an e-mail to The News Tribune.

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Kevin Cavanagh with Pierce County Information Technology points out that the link we published in the printed paper for the weather tracker system left off one symbol.

The correct link is http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/PC/

If you can't bring it up, click here.

On the left side, it's titled "How hot is it?"

It's pretty cool. According to the site, "Eleven weather stations around the county record temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and more. Data is updated every 15 minutes."

Doris Jairala has been a faithful bus rider the past five years, taking the 53 route a few times a week to get to her housekeeping jobs.

Driving isn't an option for the 62-year-old University Place resident. She suffers from seizures and isn't allowed to get behind the wheel.

(To the left: Doris Jairala, of University Place, rides the Number 53 bus to her job as a housekeeper last month. The route will be eliminated in July as Pierce Transit reduces less-used routes such as hers. Joe Barrentine/The News Tribune)

So that means for her job, she hops on the bus to Lakewood, Steilacoom, UP and any other community in which her work takes her.

But she will be one of the thousands of riders who will have to find a new bus beginning July 12. Pierce Transit, squeezed by the economic downturn, opted to eliminate or reduce service on routes throughout the county that don't have a high ridership.

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The flooded-out tractor still needs a few more repairs, so we're not heading down to southwestern Washington today. We plan on going tomorrow.

Until then, I had Tom Ecker explain what his shop did to have to repair the tractors that were rescued out of the muck after the December 2007 floods.

Nora Holbrook has been an inspector at Pierce County polls since 1988, a year after she retired from Bon Marche. On Tuesday, she was one of four workers at the Fife Community Center, which was the slowest polling station last election. She says the paced has picked up: By 10:30 a.m., about 30 people had cast ballots.

She has mixed feelings about the inevitable move to an all-vote-by-mail system:

I kind of hate to see it die out. A lot of people do enjoy coming to the polls, but considering the cost to set everything up, it’s understandable.

But, she says, fewer and fewer people are turning out to vote. Some are mailing in ballots. Others aren’t even bothering:

There used to be people lined up for two blocks to vote during presidential elections. It’s getting less and less. Last time, no voters were her, someone came in and we told them to get to the back of the line and kind of laughed when he looked for the line.

There is one positive to working the polls, she said. She’s the boss of the group of workers at the station, and that group includes her husband, Jack:

With the group I’ve got, there’s not much bossing. Well, there is my husband. Today’s the only day I get to be his boss, and I am his boss.

Jack Holbrook let out a hearty laugh when she said that. He likes working the polls but sees the bigger picture:

I think you’ll get more people to vote if it’s all mail-in. People don’t always want to come out if it’s a rainy, ugly day outside. So if more people vote, that’s what’s important.