Preston school bus drivers oppose proposal to hire outside company

Preston - Local school bus drivers initiated a petition drive Thursday to force a public hearing on a proposed plan to outsource student transportation services.

The proposal follows a decision made by the Board of Education last March to conduct a feasibility study of whether to subcontract any and all work performed by bargaining unit employees. In May, the board voted to disseminate the study to four bus companies; First Student, M&J, DATTCO and STA.

A small group of drivers will be at the transfer station this morning to collect signatures. Some drivers gathered outside of a town meeting Thursday, but the sparsely attended meeting yielded only a handful of signatures.

"There's no denying that the public supports us. We want to demand that they have this hearing, and they can't ignore the issue anymore, they're just moving along so fast," Becky Boenig said.

Boenig has been driving in Preston for two years and says she and other drivers plan on circulating the petition to residents who live along their regular school routes within the next week.

"I love my job. Even if we were promised to be taken on by the company that wins the bid, it still won't be the same, and there are a lot of broken promises when it comes to a contractor," Boenig said.

Drivers plan to circulate the petition for 20 days and hope to have enough signatures for a public hearing before the next school board meeting on July 19.

"We hope to have a public hearing before the final vote is taken among the board," said Matt O'Connor, representative for the Preston Bus Drivers Chapter of the CSEA/SEIU Local 2001. "So far the board has not done its due diligence in conducting itself in an open and transparent manner."

The union also has filed a grievance with Superintendent of Schools John Welch. The grievance requests all information pertinent to the outsourcing of the school bus contract, including full cost information and the information the board used to make its decision to contract out bargaining unit work.

The grievance also asks the board to suspend its time lines for union response to the feasibility study until all information is provided.

O'Conner's concern is that the date for the next school board meeting falls outside of the 30-day window the union has to submit an alternative proposal or a bid for the contract.

"We want all the information requested immediately and essentially to be able to start the 30-day period over again once we have all the requested information," O'Connor said.

"There's no doubt a private company will say what they need to say to get the bid. They need to consider more than who can promise the cheapest services," O'Connor said.

The results of the study were presented to members of the transportation subcommittee on June 10. Three of the four companies responded to the study.

Gary Miller, interim business manager for the Board of Education, said no decision to outsource the bus contract has been made.

"It appears that we (the Board of Education) have done our due diligence as far as testing the waters as to whether outsourcing is feasible or not," Miller said. "At this point, we're just continuing to look at the study to see what the possibilities are."

j.hanckel@theday.com