Merrimack Valley decided against privatizing its busing fleet following an outpouring of opposition from transportation employees and concern about the long-term financial risk of selling off its vehicles.
Sixteen bus drivers and other transportation employees had threatened to quit if the district contracted First Student to run its in-district transportation.
Though First Student promised higher wages, the offer was not enough to alleviate employees’ concerns about the company’s safety and employment record, compensation and benefits structure, and the prospect of downsides for the district and students.
“I would rather make $24 and be happy than make $31 and be unhappy,” said bus driver Pamela Dunlap, referring to her current hourly wage and the one First Student would have paid her.
The possibility of privatizing Merrimack Valley’s buses surfaced publicly over the last month as an avenue for the district to save money. Business Administrator Sam York, who led the bid solicitation process, projected that a deal with First Student would save the district between $300,000 and $500,000 in the first year.
First Student is the largest school bus company in the country and the only entity to submit a bid that matched the district’s requirements.
School board members worried that the potential savings would evaporate at the end of the five-year contract First Student proposed.
“It seems to me we have no leverage in five years,” Spencer Dickinson of Penacook said. “If things don’t go well, we don’t have any buses, we don’t have any equipment, they’re going to poach the good drivers, they’re going to take the good transportation directors.”
Merrimack Valley could have potentially negotiated a contract with First Student that allowed the district to retain ownership of its vehicles, but York said he did not pursue this alternative because it would have cost more. First Student offered to buy the vehicles and associated equipment for a lump sum payment of $1.3 million.
A motion on Monday night to authorize administrators to negotiate a contract with First Student narrowly failed in a 6–5 vote. Some of the five board members who wished to move ahead expressed an interest in reviewing a contract before making a final decision.
The board’s decision to halt negotiations with First Student represents something of a setback for the district’s central administrators, who are attempting to heed calls from taxpayers to cut costs. York, who is in his first year as business administrator, said transportation was the first “internal system” he reviewed for potential savings.
As an at-times testy discussion progressed during Monday’s board meeting, it became apparent that the board wasn’t keen on moving forward with the bus privatization approach.
“This is a firehose of information that came down really fast,” at-large board member Jessica Wheeler Russell of Penacook said. “I am not comfortable moving forward with this at all.”
Wheeler Russell said she had consulted with school board members in other districts that use First Student and had received mixed reviews about the company.
“It’s about a 50-50 shot with First Student,” she said.
Some districts, she said, noted they were forced to agree to extremely high rate increases at the end of their contracts due to the lack of other options.
She also expressed concern about the benefits drivers would receive. They would be ineligible to participate in the state retirement system for public employees and would not receive paid sick days.
First Student said it would guarantee current Merrimack Valley drivers and other transportation employees a job with the company, but a representative offered somewhat conflicting information about whether he could guarantee they would maintain their routes.
“It’s the same bus, the same driver, the same kids,” First Student director of business development Ryan Stanley told the drivers. “The only difference is you’re getting the paycheck from us, and it’s going to be for more money.”
But Stanley said the company would also “take over routing” to make bus trips more efficient.
Some drivers bristled at the pay scale and hourly minimums.
First Student planned to offer two steps of compensation: first-year drivers would receive one hourly rate and everyone else would earn another. It also planned to pay all employees for a minimum of five hours; Merrimack Valley drivers currently work six-hour days.
“There were just so many unknowns that, for me, it just didn’t sit well,” said Dunlap, who transports students from Penacook and Boscawen.
First Student narrowly averted a threatened strike with the union for some of its employees last week.
Drivers and some board members also expressed concerns about First Student’s safety record, citing recent litigation. Board member Amanda York pressed Stanley on whether the company had updated its safety policies over the last year.
“The district dictates the policies that we go by with our own standards, which are very high,” Stanley responded.
Emily Marie, a Merrimack Valley mechanic, said she was concerned that First Student sends its employees to work on vehicles that they may not be familiar with.
“I’ve heard from other First Student mechanics that you can be sent to jobs in other cities,” she said.
The way administrators went about considering bus privatization also rankled some transportation employees, they said.
Though Stanley said that First Student had been engaged in discussions with the district “many months ago,” the employees didn’t learn about the prospect of a bus contract until York met with them last month, they said.
The district released its request for proposals on March 16 and required submissions by March 27. York said that he would have offered to meet with employees individually in the coming weeks if the board had decided to proceed with the First Student contract.
“It seemed like it was kind of done hush-hush and really didn’t give us a lot of time,” Dunlap said.
“I’m very thankful for all the school board members that voted ‘no’, because basically they would have only had four drivers,” she added. “Everyone else probably would have left.”
