Town Sued Over Bus Contract

By John Voket

A lawsuit filed April 9 against the Town of Newtown, the Newtown School District, the Board of Education, and All-Star Transportation by owner-operator and school bus company owner Tom Adams contends that for a period of time All-Star and its principal, John Dufour, did not want to compete against local drivers for work.

All-Star Transportation was awarded a five-year contract for local school bus transportation after being qualified as the lowest bidder. The private company is scheduled to replace 33 local owner-operators on July 1.

The owner-operators are currently engaged in separate action with the state Department of Labor to determine whether the bus operators are a legitimate bargaining unit entitled to an opportunity to negotiate for a contract renewal, or independent contractors subject solely to the bidding process.

The lawsuit, which names both Mr Adams and his company MTM as plaintiffs, aims to prove that “All-Star initially had no inclination to submit a bid for any contract to provide school bus transportation within the school district because of a longstanding belief by All-Star’s principal and president, John Dufour, that he did not want to use All-Star’s competitive advantage as a large bus company to cause small operators, such as Newtown owner-operators, to go out of business.”

A copy of the suit provided to The Bee also contends that All-Star nonetheless began submitting transportation contract proposals or bids in 2009, and continued to do so because Newtown’s district Business Manager Ronald Bienkowski and Superintendent Janet Robinson “had previously worked with All-Star in another school district and had a working relationship with them.”

When asked about the reference to the working relationship between the district officials and All-Star or Mr Dufour, Mr Adams said his attorney, William C. Franklin, had seen reports indicating the officials had a previous working relationship with the bus company and its owners.

Mr Bienkowski contacted The Bee at presstime this week and took issue with multiple points in the suit, and he described his working relationship with John Dufour.

“I never worked for All-Star. I worked in Region 14 in the mid-1970s when transportation was provided by a company called Yellow Coach,” Mr Bienkowski said. “The Dufours came in and bought Yellow Coach. My only exposure to John Dufour was as a vendor.”

The district business manager went on to say that he contacted a number of bus companies including All-Star to let them know the district would be seeking bids for transportation services, encouraging the various companies.

“It’s wrong to single out All-Star [in the suit]; I called them all,” Mr Bienkowski said.

The filing of the lawsuit, which has a return date of April 24, was preceded by a memo prepared by attorney Franklin and delivered to the Newtown Board of Education offices and all seven board members March 2. In a previous report on that action, Mr Adams claimed that “fraud, corruption and favoritism marred the bidding process.”

The suit goes on to state that “Mr Bienkowski led Mr Dufour to believe that the Newtown owner-operators and/or the plaintiff MTM would not in the future be awarded school bus transportation contracts” pursuant to the bid process the district employed to solicit transportation services beginning this fall.

The document also outlines a passage in the original bid document that asks the successful bidder to recognize that the owner-operators “have unique knowledge and experience for their positions, and the successful bidder should take into account these attributes in making its hiring decisions, if these independent contractors apply for employment with the successful bidder.”

The suit alleges bid language “presupposed” the “owner-operators would not be awarded [the] contract as their members would be available to be hired by whomever the successful bidder turned out to be.”

As referenced in Mr Franklin’s previous memo, the suit details the actions that Mr Adams believes resulted in the All-Star bid being awarded in error. The memo states that instructions to bidders for that five-year transportation contract included an advisory that the bidder is responsible for ensuring all requested information is supplied with the initial bid.

“The school district reserves the right to reject any late submissions, and is not responsible for notifying the bidder of any missing elements in the bid,” the Newtown bid document stated.

The original bid specifications additionally stated that “No alterations, erasure, or addition is to be made in the typewritten or printed matter. Any deviations from the conditions and specifications may constitute sufficient grounds for rejection of the bid.”

The memo stated that the original bid solicitation called for 37 buses, for a school year of 183 days, and a five-year term. But a modified addendum reduced the fleet requirement to 32 buses.

According to the memo, five bidders adhered to the addendum and tendered sealed bids that were predicated on 32 buses. But when the sealed bid from All-Star was opened, it contained a bottom line cost predicated on the original specification of 37 buses.

Once the sealed bids were opened, the attorney’s memo notes, school district Business Manager Ron Bienkowski “unilaterally altered the bid of All-Star Transportation,” by changing the number of buses in the original sealed bid from 37 to 32, and recalculating the unit cost, which lowered the bottom line cost for services.

The suit states the winning bid was awarded to All-Star after Mr Bienkowski exhibited “blatant disregard of the bid document specifications, and flagrant favoritism of All-Star by waiving the deadline of 2 pm, June 23 for submitting a sealed bid.” Mr Adams also contends that Mr Bienkowski altered the All-Star bid after he had gained “knowledge of the competing bids.”

The school board then went on to award the contract to All-Star based on the altered bid which totaled $10,207,896, instead of the original sealed bid cost of $11,723,908.

Mr Bienkowski maintains that the bid was not rewritten, and was processed exactly as it was received.

“To accuse me of bad faith, favoritism, and corruption is a libelous statement and a serious charge, and to continue to print that — someone will be responsible for libel,” Mr Bienkowski said. “The bid contained a worksheet that tabulated the number of bus runs, daily rates, and charges for a variety of vehicles.”

Mr Bienkowski said the bid was awarded based on unit prices.

“That worksheet is not the bid. The contract analysis is not the bid,” Mr Bienkowski said. “There’s a big hang-up on this tabulation sheet.”

Mr Bienkowski said that it would be “illegal,” and would do irreparable harm to the community if the school board was to reverse its decision on awarding All-Star the contract. He also said he invited Mr Adams in to review the bid and to answer any concerns that Mr Adams had about the process, but Mr Adams never came to review the documents with Mr Bienkowski.

“That’s because it’s to their advantage to create doubt,” Mr Bienkowski said.

The suit is seeking “judicial intervention to nullify the bid process and nullify the contract between the [school] board and All-Star that resulted from” the altered bid. Mr Adams and MTM may also seek punitive damages, as well as attorney’s fees if the plaintiffs are successful in their action.