Letter to the Editor

Loss of aid jeopardizes bus companies

By Jennifer Hickey Bruce, CMP, Executive Director, NYSBCA
Posted 7/30/20

Dear Governor Cuomo,The New York School Bus Contractors Association (“NYSBCA”) represents approximately 200 private school bus companies who employ over 45,000 school bus drivers, …

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Letter to the Editor

Loss of aid jeopardizes bus companies

Posted

Dear Governor Cuomo,
The New York School Bus Contractors Association (“NYSBCA”) represents approximately 200 private school bus companies who employ over 45,000 school bus drivers, matrons, mechanics, and support staff throughout New York State. Over 63% of New York’s school districts contract out their student transportation to private school bus contractors. Indeed, our industry is proud to safely transport over 1.4 million students who ride a yellow school bus to and from school each day in New York.

However, we are writing to express our grave concerns about financing the opening of school for our districts.  After the statewide school shutdown on March 13, 2020, many school districts took the position that they could no longer pay our members for their services absent assurances from NYSED that transportation expenses would continue to be reimbursed. While school districts have agreed to continue to pay their pupil transportation contracts so long as the State Education Department maintains state aid to the districts, this aid continues to be very much in doubt and is jeopardizing school startup statewide.

As student transportation is an integral part of any school reopening plan, our members are unreasonably being asked, without any guarantee of payment, to engage in extensive planning discussions as well as implement additional safety precautions in a very short amount of time. However, without having some guarantee that we will be funded, our members categorically cannot commit to any reopening plan because the failure to fund us WILL lead to the failure of the contracted school bus industry in no uncertain terms. 

School bus contracts are bid for 1-5 years, based on a school calendar of 180 days.  Although some of our cost is clearly labor related, a piece of this labor cost is directly connected to keeping our operations ready, willing and able to conduct business (vehicle maintenance, training and other administrative costs).  The balance of the cost to operate is in the form of cost of equipment and other fixed costs, such as rent and other overhead items.  If our members will not be paid for 180 days, then the unit price must change or these operations run the risk of financial failure. 

Our employees cannot be expected to potentially put themselves at risk, many of them being older and therefore in the COVID-19 high-risk category, while having no guarantee whatsoever that they will even be entitled to keep their medical insurance during the greatest health care challenge in the past 100 years. This is why our neighboring state Connecticut adopted executive order 7R, requiring school districts to negotiate amendments to contracts with student transportation providers with the goal of “sustaining continuity of service … to make payments to transportation providers so that they may compensate their active employees and provide them health insurance.”

Even while not providing daily transportation services, our professional drivers, matrons and mechanics remain at the ready and on call as needed. Year after year, our members safely transport children to and from school every day. Now is the time to secure the experienced workforce by keeping them employed, paying their wages and continuing their medical benefits. Student transportation remains the backbone of the educational system, and this important industry must be protected. Instead, we are asking our already high-risk work force to jeopardize their health while not being able to guarantee that they will be able to enjoy their health benefits. Who would do this?

 We have been in constant communication with our members and it appears that most districts found a way to support at least some of the cost (at least 50%) to run these contracts out until June with the understanding SED is reimbursing the district for state aid.  Much litigation was initiated and some litigation remains unresolved.  We are taking the children of this state to school.  Fighting with our customer over the uncertainty of payment is expensive and disruptive and does not allow us to focus on the safety issues at hand. 

We are respectfully requesting that you provide guidance on payment on school bus contracts, and the aid connected to these contracts, before the school year begins so that we can avoid any confusion and be able to commit to a schools’ re-opening plans.  Our districts need this guidance in order to submit their re-opening plans in good faith due July 31, 2020, and our employees deserve to know if they’ll be paid and their benefits continued. Therefore, since continuity of transportation funding (180 days) is material to each of our school district’s transportation re-opening plans, unless these plans are rejected by NYSED, we will need to assume that we are getting paid pursuant to our renegotiated contracts with our school districts. The alternatives of canceling contracts and rebidding midyear are just not reasonable.