BILL FINALLY VOWS TO FIX SCHOOL BUS FIASCO
Calls woes in driver vetting ‘unacceptable’
Mayor de Blasio vowed to take action on the city’s school bus crisis Thursday as school officials overhauled background checks for drivers in response to a Daily News investigation revealing criminals had been cleared for bus jobs.
Speaking at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn, de Blasio told reporters the problems with busing over the first weeks of the school year were unacceptable and he’s looking for a big fix.
“I’m really distressed about this issue with the school buses, and we’re going to look at the whole structure,” de Blasio said.
“This has been an absolutely unacceptable situation. We will not allow it to continue,” he added.
De Blasio’s statements came as Education Department officials tightened background checks for bus workers and transferred investigatory functions to a new division.
He said the background checks prompted by The News’ reports should’ve been done long ago.
“There should have been background checks for absolutely everyone,” de Blasio said, adding: “I do not believe anyone who has been previously convicted of drunken driving should ever drive a child, or anyone who has ever been convicted of any kind of violence should ever drive a child.”
Meanwhile, an investigator who charged school officials with stealing his electronic signature and email to give dozens of potentially dangerous applicants jobs on buses says the problem is more widespread than he’d thought.
Former NYPD detective-turned-bus-investigator Eric Reynolds said last week that more than 100 background checks went through without his knowledge.
Now he says 763 background checks got bogus approvals, based on the numerical tracking system used for tallying the checks.
“Clearly, many more drivers were approved without the full background check than the DOE has acknowledged,” Reynolds said. “It shows that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Education Department spokeswoman Miranda Barbot said the city is overhauling bus-worker checks so that drivers get the same background checks as all school employees.
“All bus drivers will now go through the same fingerprinting and background check process as all DOE employees, on top of the state background check which includes an FBI criminal history review,” Barbot said.
“The DOE’s Division of Human Capital will now oversee that vetting process as it does for DOE employees, and the DOE’s Office of Special Investigations will now investigate misconduct allegations as it does for DOE employees,” she added.
The organizational changes come as school bus delays and missed stops spike.
As of Tuesday, the city’s busing complaint line was bombarded with calls, 95,320 in the first eight days of school, compared with 78,917 last year.