How Much More Will

‘Improvements’ Cost Taxpayers?

To the Editor:

The first week of All-Star providing school bus services for Newtown has begun with a significant number of problems. Some would say this should be expected when making this significant of a change. I would challenge that this was not caused by typical start-up challenges but by a concerted effort by the school administration and All-Star to vastly change the bus system for the sole purpose of lowering All-Star’s costs in order to bring them in line with the bid that All-Star submitted to win the contract.

Back in September 2011, I wrote a letter to the editor (“What Will Go To All-Star Next?” The Newtown Bee) expressing my concern with how was All-Star able to bid significantly lower than not only the owner-operators, but also DATTCO and First Student bus companies. No one in the administration or BOE attempted to understand how All-Star’s bid could be so much lower that the other bus companies. I firmly believed then and still believe that All-Star provided a “low ball” bid in order to win the contract. Once they had won the contract, they then set out to redefine the bus routes, size of buses, bus stops, number of students per bus etc. to meet the bid. This has resulted in fewer buses, much longer ride times on the bus and vastly overcrowded buses.

If this strategy was known at the time of the bid, would anyone have found this to be acceptable? Was this bidding process fair to the owner-operators, DATTCO and First Student? There is no doubt that it appears this process was orchestrated to ensure All-Star would win the bid. This orchestration is what is resulting in the very poor performance of All-Star to date.

I certainly do believe that All-Star will solve many of these problems and improve the service to Newtown. The question we need to ask is how much more will these “improvements” cost Newtown taxpayers.

Vincent Saviano

5 Yearling Lane, Sandy Hook                                 September 5, 2012