FBI eyes school bus contracts
Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into city contracts awarded to private companies that operate the city’s massive yellow school bus system, sources said.
The FBI served a subpoena recently on the contracts division in the Education Department’s Office of Pupil Transportation at its sprawling headquarters on Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City, Queens.
Investigators seized bus contracts and records related to several key employees of that office in a late October visit, the sources said. Those officials include Director of Safety Paul Weydig and his wife, Director of Contracts Lisa D’Amato, sources said.
Federal investigators also seized paperwork linked to another official in contracts, Everett Parker, and Manny Gomez, a background investigator who left the job two years ago, according to sources with knowledge of the probe.
Federal officials have kept the investigation quiet. Representatives for the FBI didn’t respond to calls for comment.
“They must be investigating bribery,” said one source with knowledge of the probe who asked to remain anonymous. “But I don’t think they’ll find anything.”
Sources said the probe may relate to a 2015 call by city Controller Scott Stringer to investigate collusion by the bus companies in trading lucrative routes back and forth.
But others speculated the investigation may be tied to pressure to approve potentially dangerous hires to work on the buses, a practice that whistleblowers reported to city investigators and police in September.
Education Department spokesman Will Mantell said the department is helping auditors and investigators probe the Office of Pupil Transportation, but he declined to address the FBI’s activity directly.
“We proactively referred information on this unit to investigators and auditors, but we can’t speak to the federal government’s activity,” Mantell said.
This isn’t the first time the FBI has looked into the city’s complex, $1.2 billion yellow bus system.
In 2008, federal investigators arrested a school bus company owner and top union officials in a crackdown on decades-old corruption in the lucrative industry.
The city’s school bus system has endured a series of problems since the start of the school year Sept 5.
In October, a Daily News investigation revealed accusations that senior bus officials pushed for the hiring of bus workers who’d been convicted of serious crimes, leading the city to overhaul background checks for bus staffers.
And service problems reported by The News prompted the city to hire an outside firm to conduct an audit of bus company contracts in October.
Amid the tumult, two top executives in charge of the city’s school bus system lost their jobs. And current staffers said changes are still taking place within the system.
Weydig, D’Amato, Parker and Gomez all failed to respond to requests for comment.