Closed School Board Session Addresses

Pending Transportation Contract Decision

By Eliza Hallabeck

The Board of Education met in an executive session on Tuesday, August 30, to discuss the “pending labor claim regarding student transportation.”

Board of Education Chair William Hart said his board met with district lawyers during the meeting.

Since the board met in an executive session, everything discussed during the meeting is confidential. No motion or vote was made following the closed session.

Mr Hart said the plan was to then hold a special meeting of the school board on Thursday, September 1, for the board to rule on the contract for the school district’s regular education routes. With power still being restored across town by Wednesday, August 31, in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, Mr Hart said his board was conscious of residents being unable to attend the meeting due to blocked roads and power outages, and therefore decided to postpone the public discussion of the contract until its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, September 6, at 7:30 pm, at Reed Intermediate School.

The canceled Thursday meeting would have been held a week after the school board canceled another meeting to discuss and possibly vote on the contract.

The bus routes under consideration in the bid are currently overseen by Newtown’s traditional service providers, individually contracted owner-operators. The owner-operators current contract is due to expire after the end of the 2011-12 school year. The school district began soliciting bids for the five-year student transportation contract in late May. The contract in question does not include bus routes overseen by MTM Transportation Inc, which is responsible for special needs and other transportation services in the district.

The lowest qualified bidder, at just over $10.2 million for the contract, is All-Star Transportation. The collective owner-operators tendered the fourth lowest bid at $11.7 million, with First Student Transportation bidding just over $11 million and DATTCO presenting an $11.4 million bid.

As previously reported in The Bee, the owner-operators complaint with the State Board of Labor Relations alleges the district violated the Municipal Employees Labor Relations Act (MELRA). The complaint, issued by attorney Henry F. Murray, alleges a violation of Section 7-470(4) of MELRA in that the board has failed to bargain with the owner-operators through their elected contract committee with respect to its decision to subcontract school bus driving responsibilities. That labor complaint hinges on three points: whether the owner-operators are employees and not contracted individuals; whether a committee representing the local drivers that has met with the Board of Education over the years to negotiate contracts is a labor union; and whether it was unfair for the board to seek outside services before bargaining with the owner-operators.

An attorney representing the district said the complaint has raised a number of questions, including whether individual owner-operators can contract with the school board without having the situation be considered “price fixing.”