Transportation Advisory Services (TAS) President Mark Walsh presented his transportation study to the Board of Education at its special meeting on July 21, with the recommendation the district renegotiate its contract with All-Star Transportation.Rebid Hazards, Recommendations

The Board of Education voted at its May 4 meeting to engage TAS to consult the district on its current transportation services for a cost of $9,680.

The 62-page report was first circulated to the board at its meeting on June 21.

To conduct the study, Mr Walsh said, TAS gathered information, conducted interviews, compared data to other districts, and analyzed ridership information provided by the district and All-Star Transportation.

Mr Walsh pointed out the district's home to school, in-district athletic, and field trip transportation contracts with All-Star Transportation will run out in June 2017.

"From all indications, from all the interviews that we performed, from all the different perspectives that we gathered, there was no question that All-Star … has performed very well and has been compliant with the requirements of the specifications," said Mr Walsh, adding later that the athletic transportation is exemplary.

The fleet provided by All-Star is on average 3.3 years old with 61,000 miles, and Mr Walsh said the industry standard is 5.5 years old with about 75,000 miles.

"The fleet profile is better than what we would typically see," said Mr Walsh.

Mr Walsh said some "key takeaways" from the report include he believes All-Star would recommend a fleet profile improvement with a significant number of propane vehicles if the district renegotiates, which would generate tax revenue for the town, and the Board of Education transportation policies need to be updated.

The district has three options, according to Mr Walsh: It can renew its contracts with minimal changes other than cost, it can renegotiate with All-Star with conversations around changes or new requirements, or it can rebid.

"With a renegotiation, you are effectively renegotiating and discussing a whole new contract," said Mr Walsh.

Mr Walsh said the TAS report recommends renegotiating with All-Star to enter into a new five-year contract. He also said he believes the district should change its pricing, address fleet issues, and look at operating methodologies.

"You have a right to do that in a renegotiation," said Mr Walsh.

The district also has a contract with Education Connection for vocational transport, which has two more years remaining on the contract.

At a Board of Education meeting in January, district Business Director Ron Bienkowski said the contract increase this year for the main All-Star Transportation contract was five percent, and the Education Connection Transportation contract was 1.72 percent. In the proposed budget, the local transportation costs were listed as $2,768,155, the vocational transportation contract as $96,720, and the local special education transportation contract as $511,671. The total proposed 2016-17 transportation budget was listed as $4,465,588, a 5.11 percent increase over the 2015-16 budget.

If the district rebids its contracts with All-Star, Mr Walsh said there is no guarantee on potential prices.

"It is not an automatic result that you are going to go out and save money," said Mr Walsh.

Rebidding, he said, may result in a price increase, with a risk that the quality of service, if the company is not All-Star, may not be at the same level.

If renegotiating is not successful, Mr Walsh said the board could decide to rebid.

TAS also recommends the district use greater specificity in its student attendance data in the future.

"I did recommend that you increase the use of bus stops. It is safer, it is more efficient, you will use less fuel, your runs will be more timely … It's the way transportation systems are operating. You're not using bus stops to the same level that most districts are," said Mr Walsh, adding that would mean having students being required to walk to them when appropriate.

Mr Walsh also recommended changing bell times at schools for more efficient bus runs. The district is not meeting maximum capacity on its vehicles due to the structure of its start and end times. He also noted All-Star provides the routing software, which could be a detriment if rebidding contracts, due to not having full access to the information. In order to use routing software, the district would need to purchase it, according to the presentation.

Board of Education Chair Keith Alexander thanked Mr Walsh for the report, and said the board would contact him if it has any further questions.