{"id":3431,"date":"2011-05-31T09:39:27","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T13:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=3431"},"modified":"2011-05-31T09:39:27","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T13:39:27","slug":"unionville-board-of-ed-votes-to-keep-bus-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=3431","title":{"rendered":"Unionville board of ed. votes to keep bus operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bids rejected at special Tuesday morning meeting, district looks to save $87K annually<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District will continue to operate it's own bus fleet after a formal vote, Tuesday morning.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 It was quick, to the point and ended with a loud round of applause.<\/p>\n

Tuesday morning\u2019s special Board of Education meeting ended discussions of outsourcing the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District\u2019s buses, as the board voted 7-0 to reject all of the bids and keep the transportation system in-house.<\/p>\n

In the end, the fact that it came down to simple math that saved board members from weighing the \u201cvalue added\u201d factor of keeping busing in-house. After district officials and members of the transportation department identified about $339,000 in yearly savings that could be found in the busing operation, keeping the operation district owned represented a savings of $87,000 a year over a five-year projection, less than the lowest bid, which came from First Student Transportation Services. In fact, First Student was the only bidder of the five who offered bid to come in under the district\u2019s existing numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at just the numbers, we\u2019re sightly less expensive keeping in house,\u201d said Keith Knauss, the board\u2019s Finance Committee chair. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not considering the intangibles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intangibles are considerable,\u201d board president Timotha Trigg said.<\/p>\n

Still, there were a few questions about the numbers. Board member Jeff Leiser asked about how pension obligations under the Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS) and other employee costs had been handled in the five-year projection.<\/p>\n

Robert Cochran, the district\u2019s Director of Business and Operations, said, if anything, the numbers used are likely more conservative than reality, noting that they reflect Gov. Tom Corbett\u2019s plan to cut payroll tax reimbursements was built into the numbers, although legislation restoring those funds had been passed by the state house last week.<\/p>\n

Currently, under state law passed in 2010, PSERS contribution rates can only increase by three percentage points a year, although the system continues to be underfunded \u2014 which led to projections that contributions could increase as much as five-fold in the coming years, prior to the passage of the rate cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PSERS problem is so big that I can\u2019t see the state allowing it to bankrupt every district in the state,\u201d member Holly Manzone said.<\/p>\n

Board members allowed that if PSERS or health benefits do rapidly increase in cost, the board may have to revisit this decision in the coming years, but for now, the numbers add up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to go on what we know today,\u201d Knauss said.<\/p>\n

Superintendent of Schools Sharon Parker praised the workers in the transportation staff for being willing to offer suggestions to cut costs \u2014 and then live with those changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are considerable changes in the way we\u2019re doing business,\u201d she said, calling the planned operational cuts a \u201ccultural shift\u201d in the operations of the transportation department.<\/p>\n

Gail Wolfel, the district\u2019s Director of Transportation, said the changes would not always be easy, but shouldn\u2019t be evident to parents or students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a challenge in the coming years,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we will be able to succeed in giving the same level of service we\u2019ve been giving the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The voted 7-0, with Paul Price and Eileen Bushelow not present at the meeting. The final vote prompted a loud round of applause from the audience, board members and administrators, ending nearly nine months of debate about the fate of some 84 transportation department employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bids rejected at special Tuesday morning meeting, district looks to save $87K annually By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 It was quick, to the point and ended with a loud round of applause. Tuesday morning\u2019s special Board of Education meeting ended discussions of outsourcing the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District\u2019s buses, as the board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[161,44,71,24],"class_list":["post-3431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-outsourcing","tag-school-board","tag-school-bus","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}