Transportation consolidation and lack of competition

 sound familiar? There's some good coverage from Vermont this week:

Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Slate Valley Unified Union School District, said only one company, Bet-Cha, responded to the district’s last two bids for service. This is despite the supervisory union hiring a transportation consultant to drum up more bids across the Northeast, she said.

Olsen-Farrell said her district faces similar school bus workforce challenges and concerns with lack of vendor competition identified by the Agency of Education’s report.

What's great about this report is it goes back into some causes: 

 Private equity’s presence in the market has generated concern among advocates and school officials around the quality of service available to school districts. Some fear it could magnify workforce shortages and the small vendor pool. 

Azani Creeks, a labor issues researcher and campaigner for the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project, said the trend is part of an emerging pattern at public schools of outsourcing and privatizing systems like health care, data management and food services to private-equity-affiliated companies.

Private equity companies have been investing in the student transportation sector for at least 15 years, Creeks said, according to tracking by the Chicago-based watchdog organization.

Remember, a private corporation exists to create profit for shareholders, not to provide service for students and their families. 

And this part will sound locally familiar: 

While many districts contract out transportation services, some Vermont school districts, like South Burlington and Champlain Valley, operate their own systems — albeit not without their own workforce challenges.

Jean-Marie Clark, the South Burlington School District’s director of finance and operations, said having an in-house fleet with drivers on staff allows the district a certain level of flexibility and control that they may not get with a third-party company.

“It feels like we are in control of what’s happening and what routes are running and what routes aren’t running, as opposed to that being told to us,” she said.

Staffing shortages remain a persistent issue, officials said, although some districts have found more stability after they increased wages

I'll note again: there are other things districts collaborate (note the word on); this is another to be looking at.