The entire six-person staff coordinating Alameda County's Safe Routes to Schools program has been laid off.

Unlike so many stories these days of transportation funding getting slashed, Alameda's program is fully funded. After a series of local delays, the contract is slowly making its way through Caltrans. Now the only way Alameda County schools will start this month with its Safe Routes to Schools, or SR2S, programs intact is for Caltrans to issue a quick contracting decision that will release the funds.

"Staff are very anxious to get started," lamented Laura Keegan, chief operating officer of Transform of the six let go last week. "School is just around the corner. I just want my staff back."

Across the country, SR2S programs encourage walking and biking as a way for students to get to school. Often, a government-funded coordinator works with several elementary and middle schools to build relationships between parents, teachers and school. These staff that lower the barriers to walk and biking while promoting active transportation as a fun and safe alternative.

Every two years, Alameda County selects a combination of organizations to run its SR2S program. The Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC) - a 22-person board of mayors, councilmembers, county supervisors, BART and AC Transit representatives - must approve each step of the selection process.

The team selected for 2011-2013 is very similar to the team active in 2009-2011. Alta Planning performs an audit of the walking conditions and other analyses. Cycles of Change, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, Big Tadoo Puppet Crew and others organize family cycling workshops, children's bike rodeos and safety puppet shows in the schools. But it's staff at Transform coordinate the relationships between schools, parents, and advocates with six full-timers.

These organizations were selected to receive approximately $1.5 million from county sales taxes and federal and state sources. This money would fund the SR2S program from July 1 of this year through June 2013. During these two years, the program would serve 90 elementary and middle schools in Alameda County (30 percent), and pilot its first high school program.

Due to delays within Alameda County earlier this year, the contract schedule is now over six weeks delayed. Without a formal notice to proceed, staff cannot be paid to work. After paying its SR2S staff from its own general fund as long as it could, Transform laid off its staff early last week, with the hopes of bringing them back when the funds become available.

"We supported it as well as we could," Keegan said.

How did the schedule fall behind? First, commissioners raised several issues and concerns with the program while reviewing the RFP. Staff adequately addressed this concerns, but the process delayed the release of the RFP by more than a month.

Originally, the team was to be approved in May, but because the ACTC board meets only once a month, by the time the Alta/Transform team was selected, the nearest board meeting was June 23. This was almost two months later than originally scheduled.

The contract is now with Caltrans, which must perform its own check on the fine print to meet Federal funding requirements.

"Caltrans has between 10 and 45 business days to make its audit," Arun Goel, with Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority, said.

However, there's a loophole. Caltrans can decide it it will allow the work to begin before it makes its audit, in what is called a "post-award" audit. Goel requested that Caltrans perform a post-award audit, allowing the funds to be released and the program restarted almost immediately.

"We're committed to this, sitting with everything ready to go, but this is the process we have to go through when Federal funds are involved," Goel said.

After repeated press inquiries to Caltrans, we were unable to confirm if post-award audits are actually a common practice. Meanwhile, most Alameda County schools start this week and next.

Alameda County students may start the school year with a lesson in contracting and red tape.