Keep The Owner/Operator Bus System

To the Editor:

A legal notice in the back of last week’s newspaper caught my eye. The Board of Education is soliciting bids from bus companies to provide transportation services to Newtown students. This would be a five-year contract beginning July 1 with renewal options available at the mutual agreement of both parties.

I’m sure the school board is obligated by law to put its transportation contract out to bid. I’ve sent an e-mail to the board chairman, Elaine McClure, seeking clarification, and I am awaiting a response. I’m curious to know whether the dozens of hardworking men and women who own and operate the buses that take our children to school are aware of what’s happening under their noses, or have been invited to bid.

Many people probably do not know that Newtown has a unique transportation system; the drivers own and operate their buses, unlike in other school districts where faceless bus companies hire the drivers and provide the buses.

The advantage of an owner-operator system seems obvious to me: Newtown’s drivers are invested in their buses because they paid big bucks for them. They keep them clean, well maintained, and safe for our children. You get very little driver turnover day after day and year after year because there’s no reason for the drivers to quit and find another job; in fact, some of these buses and routes have been passed down from one generation to the other, and many, if not most, of the drivers live in Newtown. It’s one of the appealing and, quite frankly, quaint things about living in Newtown, something you won’t find in other communities.

You may remember what happened two years ago in New Milford, where drivers for All-Star Transportation went on strike for ten days in a dispute over pay. The drivers eventually got their raises, but it came at the expense of children and parents, who had to drive their kids to school for two weeks. If it happened in New Milford it could happen in any other school district where a faceless bus company like All-Star provides the transportation.

Fortunately, we in Newtown won’t ever have to deal with the hassles of a strike. That is, unless the Board of Education and administration decide to hire an out-of-town corporation to bus our children. I’ll be curious to see how the bids come back, but regardless if our drivers get lowballed, I have faith the school board and administration will resist the temptation to save a buck and instead look at the big picture and keep Newtown’s owner-operators in their buses. They’ve given too much to this community and its children and made too big an investment in their livelihoods to be bused out of town now.

Respectfully,

Chris Gardner

4 Mt Pleasant Terrace, Newtown                             February 2, 2009