Six days after ending its four-year contract with Ecco Ride to provide its bus transportation, the Columbus Municipal School District Board of Trustees knew only a couple of things for sure.

First, it knew it would have to develop its own transportation system and, second, it would need someone with experience to operate it.

During Monday’s regular meeting, the board considered a plan outlining what that system might look like, as well as hired Willie Stewart, who has managed Ecco Ride’s transportation system for the district, as its director at a salary of $61,500.

But everything else, much like the upcoming school year itself, remains up in the air.

“We’re taking a close look at everything, but the difficulty is that it’s hard to assess exactly what our needs will be until we get a clearer idea of what school is actually going to be when we return,” Superintendent Cherie Labat said. “We’re excited to have Mr. Stewart come on board because he’ll be able to help us with the logistics. We know we can’t wait until the last minutes to calculate our needs, hire drivers and develop routes. But we also don’t want to move too quickly. How many students are coming back? What are their needs? When will the school year start? Will students attend every day? There are so many questions that we don’t have answers for right now.”

During Monday’s meeting the board reviewed a plan for what the transportation needs might look like based on previous years.

As a result of the ended contract, Ecco Ride has reclaimed five buses.

Without replacing those buses, CMSD estimated the cost of a year’s transportation service at $2,065,311, about $14,000 more than the three-year average costs for transportation under Ecco Ride.

That number includes salary and benefits for the director, an administrative assistant, 61 drivers and eight monitors for a total of $1,732,181. The remaining costs go to fuel and insurance.

Currently, the district has 69 buses that are operational, but fewer than half (29) are less than 10 years old, which is typically the length of the engine warranty on a new bus.

Labat said the majority, if not all, of the bus drivers will be former Ecco Ride drivers.

The alternate plan includes the purchase of six new buses, at a cost of $95,700 each, for a total of $568,200. That plan would increase the district’s supply of buses under warrant by 35 over the next 10 years.

By purchasing the six buses, the cost for running its own transportation department would be $582,150 more than the three-year Ecco Ride average.

Labat said the uncertainty surrounding the district’s budget and transportation needs makes it difficult to commit to either plan.

If the district chooses not to purchase new buses, or perhaps fewer new buses, it might turn to other options such as extending or doubling routes by implementing staggered starting times for its schools.

Labat said, in the meantime, the district hopes to learn more from a survey it is sending out to parents and awaiting direction from the state department of education.

“It would be much easier if we had statewide guidance on this,” Labat said. “But there could also be a situation where individual school districts will be making many of the decisions. Right now, we’re collecting information, looking for alternatives and weighing our options. At this point, that’s really all we can do right now.”

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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