Oregon Public Broadcasting

Portland high schoolers don't have to worry about their bus passes disappearing at the end of this month. A last-minute funding solution came today from city, transit, and school leaders.

All Portland Public high schoolers have been able to get free bus passes, for the last two school years. Now, students can rest easy that the passes they have now will be good through the end of this, the third year of the program. There was a risk those passes would be cut off at the end of 2011, because they were funded by the state's Business Energy Tax Credit program – and that's going away.

Matt Shelby with Portland Public Schools says school officials were worried about what students would do without the passes.

"We were very concerned that if the pass went away, we would see a sharp decline in students attending our high schools," says Shelby. TriMet closed more than half of the 675-thousand dollar funding gap. The rest came from the city of Portland and Portland Public Schools. Nothing has been announced about how the program might be funded next school year.