IG EYEING BUSING CONTRACT
City warned: 'Proceed at their own risk'
The Office of the Inspector General has its eye on the Boston Public Schools bus contract that raised eyebrows last year, with the state entity telling the school district to “proceed at their own risk” with the pact.
New state IG Jeffrey Shapiro sent the school district, city administration and Boston School Committee Chair Jeri Robinson a letter dated Dec. 21 appearing to warn them about the agreement the district is entering into with Transdev, the company that’s run the city’s troubled school busing operation for years.
“The OIG is aware of publicly reported concerns with the current school bus operator’s performance under the existing contract and is aware of publicly reported concerns with the current school bus procurement,” Shapiro wrote in the letter obtained by the Herald through a records request.
The district, he wrote, is required to follow state procurement laws, and, “Therefore, the BSC and Boston Public Schools should understand that awarding such a contract at this time requires them to proceed at their own risk.”
The letter did not make any further definitive claims about this particular contract, but it said, “any contract entered into in violation of the statute is invalid, and payment to the vendor under such an invalid contract is prohibited.”
The school district said in a statement that they’re in the process of working out the issues.
“BPS transportation staff continue to work to finalize a contract for school buses for the coming fiscal year,” a spokesman said in a statement Tuesday. “With the informed guidance of the Inspector General’s Office, we have identified opportunities to clarify and improve contract administration that will be beneficial throughout the term of the contract. We are working with Transdev to incorporate those into the contract and anticipate presenting it to the school committee at their March 1 meeting.”
On Tuesday, IG spokesman Jack Meyers said in a statement, “The inspector general and the Boston Public Schools share the goal of having an effective transportation contract that gets students to school safely and on time.”
The contract procurement process took some flak last month when the Boston Finance Commission, a statutorily created city budget watchdog, took issue with the fact that only one company — the one that currently does busing for the district — had put in a bid to run transportation for the district. FinCom’s head, Matthew Cahill, at the time said he’d received “several complaints” about the process, which he said had problems, as evidenced by the fact that there was only the one bidder.
“The letter from he IG’s office supports our findings that there were some flaws in the process and the school department needs to address them publicly,” Cahill told the Herald on Tuesday.
Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper at the time defended the “we’re confident that the bidding process was competitive and that the bid received from Transdev meets all bid specifications.”
Shapiro wrote in the December letter that a “governmental body must use a meaningful selection process when determining whether a vendor is ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ to the solicitation of transportation services advertised in accordance with Chapter 30B,” which is the state law governing procurement of services by entities such as the school district.
The contract is for a fiveyear term starting this summer, with an option for three one-year extensions. Transdev’s bid came in at $17.5 million.
Shapiro in the letter suggested that the district has a way out of the contract, as “a governmental body has the discretion under Chapter 30B to cancel a procurement if the governmental body determines it is in its best interest, if for instance, there are flaws in the process.”
Busing is a longstanding problem in Boston, which spends north of $130 million a year on getting kids to school. The performance times — which Mayor Michelle Wu has touted as improving this past year — have been such an issue that they’re one of the main focus areas in the agreement the city signed with the state last summer to avoid receivership of the school district.