The law requires that school districts which bus students to public schools are also responsible for busing students to private schools as well. Districts that bus are only responsible for transporting students who live within the district.
It costs Upper St. Clair about $6,502 per day to bus just private and parochial students, with an average of $14,524 to bus all students to schools. There are 183 days in the school year. According to Chuck Samek, Upper St. Clair's transportation consultant. Samek retired as transportation director last December, but continues to work as a consultant.
Samek said the district's 52 vehicle fleet log an estimated 545,000 miles a year. About 95,000 gallons of fuel was purchased last year, and the average mpg is 5.7.
Of the district's 4,100 students, 264 are bused to private or parochial schools. Seventeen are already transported by Matthews Bus Co. Three more students receive Port Authority Transit passes to attend Carlow College Elementary, Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic high schools. These passes are $75 a month per student, according to a district transportation survey.
Certain routes could be outsourced to save money, Samek said, while others would not be worth outsourcing.
Earlier this year the district received proposals from three private busing companies: First Student, Roegnik and Matthews. These companies were provided data from the school district regarding routes to private and parochial schools.
Where it costs Upper St. Clair $6,500 a day ($1.2 million a year) to bus these 264 students, the range private companies would charge to transport the same students is between $4,979 to $5,284. The minimum potential savings over the school year to Upper St. Clair taxpayers ranges from $222,910 to $278,784, provided other reductions can be made. The low bidder for the work was Matthews Bus Co.
District Finance Director Frosina Cordisco said there are other savings possible: fuel costs, maintenance costs and elimination of overtime and repair costs. This figure could be $40,000 with depreciation of some of the district's fleet. More meetings with Matthews would be needed.
"We'd like to sit down with the contractor to further evaluate this," Cordisco said. "We can see where there would be some combined routing opportunities. What we are suggesting to the board, we'd like the board to permit to enter into a letter of intent with Matthews so we can move to the next step and further evaluate this option and come back to the board in late May with a final proposal."
Cordisco said switching to Matthews would permit the district to change the start times at Fort Couch and Boyce middle schools, allowing teachers to attend staff meetings. Boyce and Fort Couch would start at 8:30 a.m., the same time as the elementary schools. Cordisco added that Matthews has also expressed interest in leasing space from the school district at the bus garage.
Board members began looking at privatization of the student transportation division last year. During negotiations last year with the union representing the drivers, it was agreed that contracting for busing private and parochial students would not be challenged by the union.