$30M School Bus Contract Advances

A one-year, $30.7 million school bus contract that is set to start in less than a month took another wheel-spin forward — even as local legislators criticized school board members for putting them in an unfairly tight spot.

That was the outcome of Monday night’s latest Board of Alders Finance Committee meeting, which was held in-person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The committee alders didn’t take a vote on a proposed new one-year, $30.7 million contract between the Board of Education and First Student. If approved, that contract — which represents a 8.75 percent increase over the current year’s cost — would cover regular and special education in-town and out-of-town school bus transportation for the school district’s 330 bus routes for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The committee’s no-vote on Monday means that the full Board of Alders can take the contract up for an expedited final vote at its next meeting on July 5. The Finance Committee hearing took place less than a week after the Board of Education signed off on this same $30.7 million school bus deal during a special meeting on June 6.

Even though the committee alders procedurally advanced the one-year school bus contract, they made clear over the course of the meeting that they were not pleased with having to decide just weeks before the contract would take effect on whether to OK a $30 million bus deal as is or potentially leave summer-school students without transportation.

“What happens if we reject this contract?” asked Board of Alders Majority Leader and Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow. ​“I feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place.” If the alders say no to the terms of this deal, he said, would the bus contractor agree to provide transportation on a month to month basis?

New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb, who presented the proposed contract to the alders alongside Board of Education attorney Elias Alexiades, said the alders’ rejection of this deal would mean that the school district would have to ​“have a conversation about whether or not to provide transportation for summer school.” It’s difficult to predict exactly how that would go, he said, because ​“the impact is so substantial.”

So essentially, if the alders said no, it would be a ​“shame on you” to the local legislature for failing to provide buses for kids. Whereas really this situation is a ​“shame on the Board of Education for not pulling themselves together” in time and putting forward a multi-year bus contract at an earlier date.

At the start of his presentation to the committee alders on Monday, Lamb outlined the months-long transportation contract negotiation process that led to this point.

He said the search for a new contract started last November. That’s when the district sought out and hired a transportation consultant with a long track record of drafting school bus contract requests for proposals (RFPs). The district began drafting a RFP in February, and posted it in March. A committee of top district officials picked a three-year contract in April, but the Board of Education voted down that deal twice, ultimately ordering Lamb to go back to the negotiation table. Lamb ultimately was able to get First Student to agree to a one-year extension of its current school bus services, at an 8.75 percent cost increase and with the same fleet of buses currently used.

What’s driving that 8.75 percent cost increase? Furlow asked.

“Busing prices have increased,” Lamb replied. ​“Maintenance prices have increased.” The district and the contractor have assigned more staff to a ​“call center for managing how complaints come in to the department,” and the 300-plus drivers in New Haven’s school bus system have secured an increase in salaries.

“There’s a very dramatic bus driver shortage,” Lamb continued. First Student has done a good job of retaining its employees. Those retention efforts involve bonuses and salary increases — which mean bumps to the overall costs of the transportation contract.

He added that other school districts across the country have seen double-digit percentage increases in their annual costs for transportation. So 8.75 percent, while a lot, is not on the higher end for comparable services.

“Have we been approached by other contractors?” asked Dwight Alder Frank Douglass.

Alexiades said that three different companies wound up submitting bids for this transportation contract.

Lamb said that one of the charges he gave to the district-hired transportation consultant earlier this year ​“was to create competition.” Because, historically, there hasn’t been much competition for this school bus contract. More competition, he continued, means better service. He said that he and his colleagues decided to break the bus contract into ​“two smaller contracts,” which should help going forward. 

“New Haven has a very complex routing structure” because of all of its magnet schools and ​“not having neighborhood schools,” he said. He said a goal of his is to bring the ​“routing function” in-house to the district ​“so we can design our routes ourselves.” So even though this one-year extension is with the same bus contract New Haven has long worked with, he hopes to structure the RFP going forward to solicit more bids from different vendors.

So ​“we’re basically paying more because we need this company to do us a solid,” Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said. ​“Because we didn’t start this process early” enough to avoid the tight spot the district is in now. She encouraged the district officials to start the bus RFP process even earlier next time to account for the possibility — and, in this year’s case, the reality — that securing a contract will take longer than expected.