On Dec 30, 12:14*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
DerbyDad03 wrote:

It's similiar to what my School District is planning to do with for
transportation services next year. We currently contract with XYZ
Transportation for bus services. We currently cover all costs of XZY
to provide those services (gas, maintenance, storage, salaries, etc.)
plus they make a profit. *Starting next year, our school district will
puchase our own busses, build our own depot and provide transportation
services "in-house". We're paying XYZ for everything anyway, *plus*
paying XYZ's profit, so by doing it ourselves, we save the cost of the
profit. In addition, we have an agreement in principal with 2 smaller
school districts in our area to provide transportation services for
them - at cost plus a smaller profit than they are currently paying
their provider. They save money, we offset some of our costs as well
as control the use of the services without having to deal with XYZ
every time a one-off transportation need arises.

Sounds good, but you're doomed.

In almost every case where a government service has been contracted to
private enterprise, the service improves or the cost goes down or both.

I'm glad you said in *almost* every case. Read on....

In almost every case where a private service has been assumed by a governmental
agency, the cost goes up or the service deteriorates or both.

Have you considered:

1. The illegal immigrant bus drivers of the private company work cheaply.
Your bus drivers will be eligible for membership in the Teamsters and, if
you don't pay them CEO wages, they can shut down your school system.

We're way off topic here, but the current drivers are not illegal
immigrants - most are already teamsters and the salaries were figured
into the cost projections.


2. Remember the picture of the 500 school busses under water in New Orleans?
You didn't see any Greyhound busses in a similar predicament. It's the
tragedy of the commons writ large.

We don't get floods up in western NY g

3. Some driver gets ****ed at the unruly kids and goes all stabby on the
rowdies. The parents can't recover damages from the school district - heck,
the school district probably doesn't even have liability insurance!

You can't count on the "private enterprise drivers" to be any better.

Earlier this year, on the very first day of school, a bus broke down.
The driver pulled over onto the shoulder of busy highway - the area
between the entrance ramp and the right lane - and called his
dispatcher. The company sent a replacement bus who pulled up behind
the other bus on the shoulder of the highway, and with 2 drivers and 1
other adult, began walking the 50 or so 1st and 2nd graders from bus
to bus. Cars were going by on both sides of the buses as the line of
kids walked down the shoulder. The school was never notified and they
had no police supervision. No one knew about it until some kids
mentioned "walking on the highway" to their parents that night.


There will be unanticipated expenses. For example, no one in your school
system has any experience rebuilding carburetors, mapping routes,
negotiating fuel contracts, training drivers, or even washing the vehicles,
let alone maintaining the equipment, securing permits, publishing
guidelines, establishing maintenance rituals, recruiting the skills, etc.,
necessary to do all these things.

I wonder what goes on in the district's maintenance building next to
where the district's trucks and grounds maintenance equipment is
stored. That heavy-duty tow truck and hydraulic lift in the big garage
must be for something other than our snow plows, tractors, graders and
other heavy equipment. Besides, why do you assume these items are
examples of "unanticipated expenses"? Do you think that these items
were simply ignored during the planning process? Do you really expect
that the district is going to buy a fleet of buses and then say "Oh
sh*t! They need gas? How come nobody mentioned that before? Here, use
my Mobil SpeedPass, but just this once. Please give them some credit.


In MBA class 101, the first thing one learns is to trade a variable expense
for a fixed one - even if the fixed expense is seemingly somewhat higher.
Management strives for this because the fixed expense is a known expense.
What you're about is the reverse: trading a fixed expense, that is, a single
check taking ten minutes of an accounts payables clerk's time, for a
multitude of imponderable, unknown, and potentially ruinous costs.

No argument, but the plan is modeled after another school district who
did the same thing a while back. (I heard a rep from that school
district give a presentation about the sucess of the program at a
planning meeting . I don't recall the out-of-state district's name,
but I could get it if a citation is needed).

The main problem here is that the district is currently paying a
higher and higher "fixed cost" for lower and lower service. There have
been other safety related issues than the example I gave above as well
as breakdowns, delays and personnel issues.


I hope it turns out differently for you, but I predict disaster.

I hope you're wrong, but I respect your point of view. I'll let you
know in a few years.


If I were
the superintendent, I'd have an iron-clad contract, written on a page from
the Bible -- because of the old refrain:

I don't own this railroad,
I don't ring the bell,
But let the train jump the tracks,
And see who catches hell!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -