March 31, 2011 — Albany, NY, Andre Claridge, Partner at PC Public Affairs announced late this evening that the State Legislature adopted a budget which excluded a number of Governor Cuomo’s budget proposals that would have significantly harmed the state’s school bus contractor and school bus distributor industries.
“It was a hard fought battle,” said Claridge. “Working closely with the industry, we made our case to the legislature and the Governor’s Office and won on the merits of the issue. We represent an important industry that helps safely transport over 1.3 million children to school all while saving New York taxpayers over $200 million a year.”
The budget battle started in January when Governor Cuomo released his budget proposal to the legislature. The Governor’s budget included a number of well intentioned provisions to help school districts save money on their transportation services, unfortunately, the Governor’s proposal did not consider the negative impact it would have had on the school bus contractors and bus distributor industries.
The Governor’s budget proposal would have…
…allowed school districts to enter into shared service agreements with other school districts and government entities – and unfairly excluded contractors from bidding on or competing with school districts for the work.
…allowed school districts to enter into unspecified cost-effective management agreements set forth by the State Education Department (SED) – there was no mention of considering contractors or how SED would have determined what was cost-effective. Nothing required school districts to disclose their true costs of providing pupil transportation services which would have put contractors at an unfair disadvantage. Nothing in the Governor’s proposal required the state or SED to recognize the significant savings that contractors currently provide to the state, school districts and taxpayers.
…limited the purchasing or replacing of school buses unless it was deemed by SED to be a cost-effective solution.
…prevented the replacement of school buses of 10 or more passengers unless it was older than 10 years and had mileage of more than 120,000 miles.
…prevented the replacement of school buses of less than 10 passengers unless it was older than 6 years and had a mileage of more than 75,000.
…required that if a lease were to be extended beyond the expected life of a school bus, that it be demonstrated to SED that leasing the bus would cost less than owning the bus.
“It was clear from the outset that the Cuomo administration failed to recognize the negative impact these particular proposals would have had on our client,” said Claridge. “It certainly was not intentional, it’s just an unfortunate reality at times that good government ideas do not always get fully vetted before they are introduced. Even the best ideas can have unintended consequences; it’s our job to ensure we educate the politicians and their staff to ensure that our clients and the taxpayers of our state are protected.”
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