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State to complete busing study this month
By HAROLD GWIN
YOUNGSTOWN
The city school district should know by the end of the month if the state thinks Youngstown needs outside support services for its student-transportation program.
That’s the approximate time line for the Ohio Department of Education to complete a study of the district’s transportation system with an eye toward reducing operating costs, said Tony DeNiro, assistant superintendent for school business affairs.
The state offer to do the study in February ended a dispute between the Youngstown Board of Education and the state fiscal-oversight commission controlling district spending.
The school board had wanted to award a contract for transportation-support services to Community Bus Services Inc., a contract that the company said would save the district $500,000 a year off its $4 million annual transportation costs. There was no charge for the services, but the agreement called for the school district to extend the company’s three-year, special-needs student-busing contract for an additional five years until June 30, 2016.
Community Bus Services got the special-needs contract last school year at $1.6 million, and the agreement has built-in annual increases of 3.8 percent.
The fiscal oversight commission balked at the support-services contract, calling the district’s request for proposals that resulted in the document “shoddy” and “one-sided,” and some school board members felt not all potential bidders had sufficient time to prepare bid documents.
DeNiro said the state also will assist the district in preparing a request for proposals for a new special-needs busing contract that would take effect in July 2011.
That request for proposals, which also must be approved by the commission, should be put out in September, DeNiro said.