HEADLINES
Effective Contractor- Client Relationship More Than Lip Service
By Sylvia Arroyo
Officials overseeing a school district’s transportation contract must view themselves as part of a team.
It isn’t a quick or easy decision to con-
tract out student transportation, but when school districts make that choice, their long-term success with a contractor begins at the pre-bid table. “Te bottom line of it all is a clearly
written request for bid,” said Charles Bednar, transportation director at Norco- Corona (Calif.) Unified School District, which contracts out with First Student on its 175-bus fleet and other services. Rout- ing is done in-house. Bednar, who has 20 years of experience
on the contracting side and 20 years on the district side, said he’s seen hundreds of bids — some poorly written and some way too detailed. Te problem with too little or too much information is that the RFP may not be crafted properly, send- ing an unintentional wrong message to a contractor on a district’s needs and expectations as well as associated costs, consequences and remedies. Any misinterpretation or miscommu-
nication becomes a serious issue when it comes to, for example, busing students with special needs. “You need to carefully define details
such as when you start paying for the bus, when the bus leaves the garage or when the first student is picked up,” Bednar said. “You have to iron out all the details before you get the bid in from the contractor so you don’t start your relationship with a conflict.” Te pre-bid meeting is where contrac-
tors have their time to question language in the RFP that may not be clear. In her 25 years with First Student, Location Manager Lisa Serra has seen good and bad RFPs. She said some didn’t clarify on the num-
ber of special education buses required or the number of standby drivers needed, for instance. So the first thing she focuses on in an RFP are the details so she can better prepare for the contract. “It it’s vague, then it hurts both sides,”
said Serra, who works with Bednar under Norco-Corona Unified’s contract with First Student. Te positive, low-maintenance rela-
tionship between Bednar and Serra stems from the fact that they’ve known each other for a long time and both under- stand student transportation operations. Tey think alike and approach issues simi- larly. Teir relationship is little different than the one Bednar would have with a complete in-house operation. Moreover, if there is an issue they need to sort out, they refer back to the contract. An important factor both Bednar and
Serra pointed out was districts, when con- tracting out, must still have some sort of in-house transportation infrastructure in place — at the very least, someone with a transportation background. Serra said working with a district contact without that background is one of the hardest things she faces in that relationship. “What they think busing can do and what
it does do are two different ideas,” she said. To also help with communication and
good customer service, contracts can in- clude a requirement for contractors to provide a monthly status report, some- thing Mark Walsh of Transportation Advisory Services recommends to his clients. His full-service student transpor- tation consulting and advisory firm assists districts with bid/RFP specification devel- opment, among other things.
26 School Transportation News Magazine June 2012 “Develop a process where a contractor
and school district sit down and decide what’s to be in that report. For example, information on whether the contractor was short on sub drivers, any maintenance issues, what their fleet looks like,” said Walsh, who began his 32-year career on the contracting side and began consulting school districts seven years later. He advises clients on implementing
some key practices, such as involving the directors of both the athletic and special education departments to determine their needs and any concerns moving forward, and tasking the special educa- tion department to provide the necessary special needs training to contracted bus drivers. A bonus is having a principal or superintendent meet with drivers annu- ally to hear about any critical issues and to remind drivers of the ramifications when they don’t perform to expectations, which benefits both the district and the contractor. In the past couple of years, Walsh has
received more inquiries by districts about outsourcing and has seen districts that al- ready contract out, be more likely to go to bid than before. “It used to be that you’d see a lot more
negotiations with existing contractors, but there are concerns and the pressure of the marketplace to cut a better deal,” he said. Districts should consider a rebid if there
is “a reasonable alternative to evaluate your price and the marketplace,” Walsh said. He added that, in many cases, districts
are better off renegotiating with their cur- rent contractor because of the informal knowledge they have collected over time about their operations. ■
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