48°
For the 2012-2013 school year, the Bedford Central School District chose not to renew its five-year contract with Chappaqua Transportation, which expired at the end of the 2011-2012 school year. Officials decided instead to outsource all the district's transportation needs to a different contractor, Towne Bus Corp.
According to district officials, moving to a contractor will save nearly $4.7 million over five years.
Taking effect in September 2012, the move was considered one of the more achievable cuts so that the proposed budget would adhere to the state's property tax levy cap, which limits increases in the tax levy to either 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. The tax levy is the total amount of a budget raised by property taxes.
Before the move, drivers and other transportation workers employed by the school district handled a third of the schools' transportation needs. When the $122.7 million budget was passed in May, 37 of the 55 positions eliminated were transportation-related.
At a Board of Education meeting in March, Superintendent Jere Hochman said that while deep cuts were necessary, outsourcing busing was a very difficult decision to make.
At the meeting, which was attended by many of the district's transportation employees, Mary Lou Cavaliere, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, the union representing the drivers, proposed that employees be given a one-year transition period instead of being laid off when the school year ended on June 30.
The district did not grant that concession, but the Board of Education reached an agreement with the CSEA In June when it voted to approve an extension of the union's contract to 2017. According to the union and the district, the agreement included modifications to the contract so as not to exceed the 2 percent tax cap, while still safeguarding the CSEA's major concerns.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Mt. Kisco and receive free news updates.
