Montville — The town’s Board of Education, one of a dozen districts in Connecticut that still employs its own bus drivers, is exploring whether it could save money by contracting out its busing.

The school board voted unanimously in October to issue a request for local bus companies to bid on the district’s transportation contract. The bid process will be open for submissions until the end of January, according to school board Chairman Robert Mitchell.

The school board employs about 35 drivers and three mechanics, who are unionized with the Teamsters Local 493 chapter.

The union contract with the school board is due for renegotiation in June 2017. Mitchell said the school board wants to take advantage of the timing to consider whether the district could save money by contracting with a private company instead of owning the buses and employing the drivers itself.

“We basically want to do our due diligence,” Mitchell said. “We’re going out to see what’s available out there.”

The district issued a request for proposals to bus companies three years ago, Montville Superintendent Brian Levesque said, but the bids that came in would not have saved the district enough money and the proposal was rejected.

Under the current union contract between the drivers and the town, any company that takes over the town’s transportation services would be required to hire all of the current drivers.

“Our drivers will still be driving our kids,” Levesque said Tuesday.

Tom Schlink, Local 493’s secretary-treasurer, also said that if the contract is transferred to a private company the current Montville bus drivers would keep their jobs.

In line with standard industry practice, the drivers’ union contract stipulates that the drivers must keep their jobs even if the district’s transportation is contracted out, he said.

Levesque said the district might not save a significant amount of money on day-to-day operational costs if it moves to a contract with a private company. Most of the savings would come from selling the district’s fleet of more than 30 buses and a handful of vans to the company, he said.

“Buses aren’t cheap, running them isn’t cheap,” Levesque said.

Several private companies, including First Student Inc., Student Transport of America, DATTCO and M&J Bus Inc., operate bus transportation for local school districts.

Montville is one of only 12 districts in the state to operate its own fleet and employ its own drivers, Levesque said.

“We’re an anomaly,” he said. “There’s been a small number of us for quite a while now.”

The Preston school district, one of those twelve that operates its own fleet, considered a proposal to outsource its transportation services last year. The district drafted a contract with DATTCO after a bidding process, but concerns from vocal bus drivers and parents drove Preston's school board to reject the contract.

The proposed five-year contract with New Britain-based DATTCO would have saved the district $242,065 over the five-year period, according to the proposal the school board considered.

Levesque said the biggest advantage to Montville keeping its own fleet and drivers is flexibility to change routes or add special runs without having to pay extra.

“When you own the bus fleet, it’s just overtime for drivers and the cost of fuel,” he said.

The bidding process likely will take several months, Levesque said, and the district could keep the fleet under its wing if no bidders make a convincing enough case for switching.

But the pending expiration of the current union contract, plus the threat of an even tighter school budget next year than this year’s brought the idea of seeking out bids as a potential cost-saving measure.

“We’re just trying to explore every avenue,” Levesque said. “If there was ever a time to do it, this was it.”

m.shanahan@theday.com