INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS
MERGER MANIA MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS NATIONWIDE ARE OPTING TO CONSOLIDATE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES OR TO MERGE COMPLETELY
WRITTEN BY MICHELLE FISHER
from nearby Upper Dublin under the new agreement. When next year begins, he said the district will have absorbed an estimated 2,800 public school students. Since forging the agreement, Upper
Dublin has saved $80,000 on fuel for its 48 buses by filling up at the Springfield station. Johnston had the other district switch to B20 biodiesel, which costs just $2.72 a gallon. Upper Dublin had been considering
A consolidation in the Philadelphia area has transporters seeing green.
districts are working together to combine transportation services, and in some cases entire systems, to save money. In Western Michigan, merger mania began several years ago, at the start of the recession, when school districts suffered from declining enrollments as well as feder- al and state cutbacks. Te Michigan Department of Education
W
recently awarded $10 million in grants to local and consolidated school districts to sup- port the costs of merging support services. West Shore Educational Service District, which consists of eight local districts, received $1.95 million for the recent merger of Oceana and Mason-Lake intermediate school districts. Mason County Eastern, also part of West
Shore ESD, received $183,226, some of which will be used to purchase additional school buses. Te district grew geographi- cally by one-third since merging with Free Soil last month. Tis trend is spreading from Michigan
to Tennessee, Pennsylvania to New York, as school districts join forces to reduce expenditures.
22 School Transportation News April 2013
hether it is called a “shared services agreement,” “consolidation” or “merger,” more and more school
“To help develop more efficient operations
of school districts, either entire district consol- idations or a consolidation of their services is being recognized as a very effective strategy,” said Michigan State Superintendent Mike Flanagan. “Tese grants reward those districts and school leaders who have shown the vision to take on these courageous tasks.” Wayne Johnston, transportation director
at the School District of Springfield (Pa.) Township, is not in line for any grants, but he still falls into this category. He worked with Upper Dublin School District to create a shared services agreement between the trans- portation departments and agreed to oversee the consolidation to help Upper Dublin rein in busing costs amid dire financial straits. It may sound complicated but, Johnston
said, but so far it’s been “a simple transition.” “Tere is more work to do, but we have
started down a path that, to this point, has saved them $250,00, and next year I expect to save another $500,000,” noted Johnston, who has been with the district since 1983. Springfield operates a fleet of 52 buses
and transports school-age residents to approximately 100 public, private and parochial schools around the Philadelphia area every school day. Tis school year, Springfield buses began transporting private and parochial students
outsourcing, he explained, but the business manager requested a cost comparison via contract bid. Tey gave it a whirl, and bids from major contractors came in at $269 per bus per day, on average — higher than Springfield’s rate of about $180 per day for the bus and driver. “By saving money, I can prevent the district
from going to subcontract,” Johnston added. Another benefit of consolidating trans-
portation operations in 2013-2104 is that neither department should see the anticipat- ed staff reductions, partly because of attrition. So what do school officials and employees
say about the new system? Johnston said some of the Upper Dublin
bus drivers initially viewed the move as a hostile takeover and had the attitude of: Who are you, and why do you think you can run our district? “I knew a lot of the drivers. It was split
50-50,” he recalled. “Now, I think they’ve seen if we work together, we can do a lot more than we could individually.” Tere were a few “bumps in the road,” he
continued, but Upper Dublin Superinten- dent Michael Pladus recently told Johnston all the principals agreed that, in their collec- tive memory, they’d never seen a smoother start of school. “Frankly, there has not been a great deal
of feedback from parents, but that may actually be a good thing as it indicates just how seamless the transition has been,” said Dr. Pladus. “Whether the bus says Spring- field or Upper Dublin on the side of it, all parents care about is that their children are safe, picked up and dropped off on time and that the drivers are kind and courteous, which has been our experience.”
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