Salem school board moves to privatize bus routes

Jun. 12—SALEM — School officials have narrowly approved a plan to move in-house bus transportation entirely to a private contractor.

The School Committee voted at a special meeting Friday to award its next transportation contract to North Reading-based NRT Bus Inc., which today runs eight routes while the school district maintains 22 employees and a fleet of its own buses to run the rest in-house. The employees are all members of AFSCME Council 93.

Under the agreed-upon deal with NRT, transportation duties will gradually transition to the private company, and the Salem positions will be eliminated. Eleven of the 22 employees would keep their current positions for the next three years. Seven others will take other jobs in the school district such as paraprofessional or custodial openings, and the remaining four either plan to retire or have already done so. After the three years, the positions will be permanently eliminated.

The School Committee voted 4-3 in support of the deal. Mayor Kim Driscoll (who is also the chairperson of the committee), Mary Manning, Ana Nuncio and Kristin Pangallo all supported the proposal, while members Amanda Campbell, Manny Cruz and Jim Fleming voted against it.

This plan was estimated to save the city about $150,000 per year over three years.

The debate pitted the city's ability to run its own school bus fleet against eliminating 22 unionized jobs that represent the first and last faces many children see each school day. More than $700,000 have been invested in new vehicles in the past five years, and officials say the fleet is in poor shape overall while the private sector offers better pay to drivers and monitors, making it hard to fill city jobs that pay $5 per hour less. The city is also having trouble hiring a transportation director, with three applications from candidates with zero experience running any kind of transportation operation.

Manning said she sympathized with the bus drivers, many of whom also delivered meals and provided other services to Salem families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I'm especially troubled by the timing, after the way so many of these people stepped up for the students, families, and Salem Public Schools in general, all during COVID," Manning said. "The timing to me probably couldn't feel worse."

Even so, she also argued the decision was unavoidable.

"Given the big picture of the transportation department right now and the foreseeable future, we've reached a point where we can't keep the status quo," she said. "I just don't see a way out of it, so I'm going to be voting 'yes.'"

Committee member Jim Fleming said, however, that he spoke to 19 of the 22 affected employees, and none of them wanted to take another job in the district.

"This attempt at privatization must be looked at as a people issue, not a money issue. We'll be taking away the municipal jobs of 22 employees," said Fleming, who attended a rally with several employees and their allies Thursday afternoon. "They gave up more lucrative jobs for the security of working for the city. Cities don't go bankrupt; private businesses do."

The vote was split 3-3 before Driscoll cast the tie-breaking vote in favor. She said Salem has a unique transportation setup, with school choice leading to cross-city routes that drive up transportation demands.

Ultimately, what pushed her to vote in favor was the fact that every employee is taken care of for the next three years.

"Every employee who is impacted will have an ability to keep working in Salem Public Schools or in the city of Salem," Driscoll said. "It isn't something we wanted to do. I think it's something we need to do in order to support the superintendent and assistant superintendent, who are doing all they can do to make the district the best they can be."

Scheduling concerns raised

The vote was criticized for its timing on Friday afternoon. The meeting began at 3:30 p.m., when many of the employees impacted were believed to be working.

Driscoll had to pause public comment during the meeting to explain that the issue needed to be resolved quickly since summer programs are coming up, and 3:30 p.m. was the only time that worked for committee members.

"We have a pretty robust summer school program that requires transportation," she said. "I understand and apologize for the time. We don't normally meet Friday afternoons, but it was deemed necessary given the schedules everyone had."

AFSCME Council 93 said in a statement that the timing of the meeting "was a disgrace and a disservice to the dedicated employees the committee just voted to terminate.

"To not only hold the meeting at a time when those impacted could not participate, but to cut short important debate because committee members had other obligations is an insult," the statement read. "Their obligation as an elected School Committee official should be the families of Salem. We will make sure that Salem voters, and especially every union household in Salem, know the manner in which this decision was made and how the committee voted."

Contact Dustin Luca at 978-338-2523 or DLuca@salemnews.com. Follow him at facebook.com/dustinluca or on Twitter @DustinLucaSN.