Howard bus contractors face uncertain future after school board awards 230 routes to California vendor

Apr. 26—Even before the pandemic made things more complicated, Howard's school bus contractors were facing challenges. They had asked the school system for routes priced at a minimum of $85,000 per year to help secure pay raises and benefits and retain drivers. Michael Bowen, who operates more than 50 Howard County Public School System routes this school year, said the system consistently rejected those bids as too high — then, in January, the school board voted to award more than 200 routes to a California-based vendor, Zum Services.

Bowen said he was shocked when he saw that Zum's contract amounts to about $117,000 per route.

"The bottom line is all these [drivers] here, they're very loyal, dedicated, hard-working businesspeople and family people and a lot of us are rooted for many generations here in Howard County," said Jim Viennas of Viennas Transportation, Inc. "To have a company in California come in and take over everything? That's a major slap in our face."

During the past year, transportation staff and consulting firm Decision Support Group, LLC recommended a series of overhauls to Howard schools' transportation system to help implement new school bell times in August. The steps, approved by the school board, include expanding student walk zones and mandating bus rider registration as well as voting in June to terminate contracts with existing local bus contractors at the end of this school year and issuing a request for proposals for new bus vendors.

The school board rescinded the contract terminations in December and in January awarded two three-year contracts totaling $99 million to service 288 bus routes to Tip Top Transportation and Zum. Tip Top, an existing school system contractor, received 58 of the routes, while Zum, which had never previously operated in Maryland according to its website, won 230.

Now, current local contractors remain in limbo about how or if their services will be used next school year. As it stands, both the total number of contracted routes and their associated costs are set to exceed current levels.

The school board's operating budget request for fiscal 2024 calls for almost $56 million for transportation services compared with the current budget of $48.6 million; $7.1 million of the increase is attributed to bus contracts.

Minutes before the board's January vote, Director of Student Transportation Brian Nevin said the 288 awarded routes would be used in "consultation" with current contracts to address driver shortages, putting the number of contracted routes above 478 for next school year.

The Zum and Tip Top contracts are worth $33 million in fiscal 2024 alone out of the $52.4 million allocated for bus contracts in the proposed budget. It remains unclear how many of the existing 478 routes will carry forward. School system spokesperson Brian Bassett said as of Wednesday he did not know how many contracts would be expiring at the end of this school year.

"As far as we know, all of our contracts are still in play," said Mitch Gunther of contractor M.B.G. Enterprises, Inc. "They have awarded those active contracts to another contractor, being Zum, so we're kind of in the dark [as to] how they're going to figure this all out."

In October, Gunther and 17 other contractors filed a class action lawsuit against the school system in Howard County Circuit Court, alleging the school board had wrongfully voted to terminate all existing contracts effective June 30, 2023. After the board unanimously rescinded the terminations, the contractors' lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice — meaning it can still be refiled — on Jan. 17. Even so, Gunther, Bowen and other contractors still face more questions than answers about what transportation will look like beginning in August.

"I seriously feel like this year that we're just on our own," Bowen said. "There's no direction from [the Office of Student] Transportation, from anybody."

Jolene Mosley, who represents District 3, was the only board member to vote against awarding the Zum and Tip Top contracts in January. She said she wasn't sure if a larger, out-of-state company would be able to better tackle the existing driver shortage and was concerned about the impact of the decision on the historical vendors.

"As humans, we also need to know that we're supporting actual people. These are people taking care of our kids, these are people getting our kids to school," Mosley said. "I think that's where the conflict comes, because we have to use tax dollars wisely, but at the same time we live around humans."

Bassett said in an April 20 email that the "Office of Student Transportation is currently doing the work with new and existing contractors to prepare for next year. For now, we would like the current planning, conversations and coordination with contractors to occur before we engage in public conversations about decisions for next year."

[ Howard Board of Education pushes high school start times to 8 a.m. beginning in August ]

When asked how Zum intended to service its 230 Howard routes, Zum spokesperson Jen Burke said in an April 20 email the company was "not able to comment or share anything related to a partnership with the Howard County Public School System at this time."

School districts across the nation are still grappling with bus driver shortages — including 93 vacancies in Howard as of Tuesday — and Bowen, Gunther and other existing contractors say they're skeptical Zum can hire sufficient numbers of local drivers and buses ahead of the school year. The company currently has a hiring page open for Howard County, offering paid certification and training, health benefits and a modern bus fleet.

School board Chair Antonia Watts said she didn't know for certain whether Zum would have the capacity to bring in new drivers and expects that they'd face similar challenges to local contractors.

"It's that company's ability to do what they said that they're capable of doing, so we will just have to see if they're able to do it," Watts said.

Shifting to a new model

Bowen says he always knew he wanted to be a school bus driver. As soon as he graduated high school, he began driving buses in Georgia and eventually started his own contract school bus company for Howard County schools in 2001.

"As soon as I found out that you could own your own school buses up here, that's all I thought about, 24 hours a day," he said.

Historically, Howard County schools had awarded contracts on a route-by-route basis to local bus companies, some of whom, like Bowen, have done business with the district for decades.

The request for proposals in the fall sought to eliminate that system and instead award multiple routes under single contracts grouped into six geographic regions. By canceling the current contracts, Decision Support Group consultant Tom Platt said the transportation office could take advantage of "economies of scale" and allow historical contractors to rebid on routes against other Maryland and national companies.

"We are absolutely committed to do this in a way that allows any vendor that is currently providing services here in the county to continue to do so through this process," Platt told the board at its June 23, 2022, meeting, minutes before the body voted 7-0 to terminate the existing contracts at the end of school year.

"We wanted to really be able to open our contracts up to regional or national companies that maybe would be able to secure more bus drivers than previously," Watts said.

Six contractors interviewed by the Howard County Times said they were "blindsided" by the vote and scrambled to figure out how the pending cancellations would affect them.

"I was planning to hire new employees for the upcoming school year [at the time]," said Henderson Brathwaite of HOB Enterprises, LLC, who operates eight contracts with the county. "I had three drivers quit. Ten years, 15 years [of experience] quit because they weren't sure what was going on the following year. It was a time of uncertainty."

Adding to the fear was the fact some contractors had bought new school buses, which can cost more than $150,000 apiece, to service existing six-year contracts. The traditional contracts had six one-year extensions built in, which contractors say they depended on to turn a profit. The school system's October request for proposals sought three-year contracts with one two-year option.

"I made plans in my personal life that I can't come back and change now," Bowen said. "I'm planning on leaving Maryland and I made that decision because I needed to do what I did while I still had a job."

Despite the proposed budget increase, the school system said last month that approximately 3,500 students would be losing bus service next school year due to expanded walk zones approved by the board last May.

As major transportation changes continue to play out, Bowen says he feels left in the dark. Contractors interviewed said they haven't spoken to any board members during the past year and joint in-person meetings with the transportation office also ceased.

"If I walked in front of those board members now, they would not have a clue who I am," Bowen said. "Learn who we are, learn what our business is. They have no clue. They follow the direction that's recommended [to] them."

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Nevin and Bassett are scheduled to present an update on school start time implementation at Thursday's board meeting, which begins at 4 p.m. To watch online, go to: https://www.hcpss.org/board/meetings/.