New York School Bus Contractors Association Scores Major Budget Victory

  Published on December 14th, 2011

This year’s budget battle started in early January after Governor Cuomo released his budget proposal to the legislature. The Governor’s budget included a number of well intentioned provisions to help school districts save money on their transportation services; unfortunately, Governor Cuomo’s administration did not consider the negative impact these proposals would have on school bus contractors, school districts and taxpayers.

“It was another hard fought budget battle,” said Andre Claridge of PC Public Affairs. ”Working closely with the NYSBCA legislative team, we made our case to the legislature and the Governor’s Office and won on the merits.  We are very grateful to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and the entire Republican Majority for recognizing the importance of protecting the rights of private contractors to offer the safest, most reliable and cost-effective school transportation services in the state.”

On March 31, 2011, the Assembly and Senate passed an amended version of the budget which excluded all of the harmful provisions put forth by the Governor’s original budget bill — Governor Cuomo signed the bill on the same day it passed both houses.

Had the Senate Republican’s not supported our position and spearheaded the effort to remove the harmful initiatives, the Governor’s original budget would have had a devastating impact on the private school bus contractor industry by…

…forcing school districts to enter into shared service agreements with other school districts and government entities – and unfairly excluding contractors from bidding on or competing with school districts for the work.

…forcing school districts to enter into unspecified cost-effective management agreements set forth by the State Education Department (SED).  Under this proposal no consideration was given to the fact that contractors are typically the most cost-effective solution.  The proposal also did not include criteria for SED to use to determine an agreement’s cost-effectiveness.  Nothing required school districts to disclose their true costs of providing pupil transportation services which would have put contractors at an unfair disadvantage.  Further, nothing in the Governor’s proposal required the state or SED to recognize the significant savings that contractors currently provide to the state, school districts and taxpayers.

…limiting the purchase or replacement of school buses unless it was deemed by SED to be a cost-effective solution.

…preventing the replacement of school buses of 10 or more passengers unless it was older than 10 years and had mileage of more than 120,000 miles.

…preventing the replacement of school buses of less than 10 passengers unless it was older than 6 years and had a mileage of more than 75,000.

…requiring school districts to demonstrate that leasing a bus would cost less than owning a bus in order to extend a lease beyond the expected life of the bus.

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