Senator Valesky Passes Bill in the Senate to make State’s Pupil Transportation RFP Law Permanent

  Published on May 12th, 2010

The bill must now pass the Assembly before it can be sent to the Governor for signature
(Senator Valesky seen here on the floor of the Senate)

Highlights:

• A. 10447 by Assemblyman Gantt and S. 7232 by Senator Valesky will repeal the sunset provisions relating to the use of Request for Proposals for pupil transportation contracts and make the law permanent.

• Current law will expire on June 30, 2012, rather than pass another five year extension, the New York School Bus Contractors thought it was time to make the law permanent.

• The original sunset provision was necessary to determine whether the use of RFPs for pupil transportation contracts would improve the delivery of private pupil transportation services.  Prior to the 1996 RFP law, children and school districts would fall victim to school bus operators with poor safety records and substandard operations because they were forced to choose school bus companies based on price alone.
• Since the RFP law was first enacted in 1996, inferior operators have been excluded from operating pupil transportation services and there is an ever growing number of school districts utilizing the RFP process.  There is no longer a reason to have the law sunset every five years.  Passing a law every five years to address an unnecessary sunset provision is a waste of state and industry resources.  In addition, it creates an unnecessary sense of uncertainty for schools that want to utilize the RFP law to procure pupil transportation services.

Assemblyman David Gantt, seen here, is Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Transportation.