Rhode Island-based Ecco Ride was awarded the transportation contract for the Columbus Municipal School District Tuesday night.

In a special meeting, the board voted 3-1 to award the four-year bus contract to Ecco Ride. At $7,572,131, Ecco Ride’s bid was more than $1 million less than the bid made by Columbus-based Waters Truck and Tractor. Waters, which had held the school district’s bus services contract since 2009, bid $8,859,331.

Ecco Ride will partner will Mayhew-based charter bus company ACR Coach to handle daily operations in Columbus.

The transportation contract was first brought up during the regular May board meeting. During the meeting, board member Jason Spears questioned the practices of Ecco Ride and moved to reject its bid. The board voted to table the issue instead. Tuesday’s special meeting was held to address the contract as well as federal funds.

Debate ensues

During the meeting, board member Aubra Turner made a motion to accept Ecco Ride’s bid. Angela Verdell seconded the motion. Spears asked to discuss the issue before the board held a vote.

Addressing assistant superintendent Craig Shannon, Spears again questioned how Ecco Ride could afford to make such a low bid and still offer comparable pay and benefits to employees.

“I don’t want this to be a cross examination but unfortunately, it’s going to be,” Spears said.

Earlier in the bid process, Ecco Ride discovered it was the low bidder. Ecco Ride’s local insurance agent, Jack Gordman, contacted Waters Truck and Tractor and asked Waters representatives about employee insurance packages. Waters declined to give that information. Spears questioned Shannon if he had instructed either company to withhold information from the other.

“Mr. Shannon, did you instruct service providers not to share information between one another during the proposal period?” Spears asked.

“No sir,” Shannon responded. “What happens is, after they turn over the bids, after they were secured, one company was contacting the other company to get information that we deemed was specific to a particular brand and we asked them not to share any information until after the board had approved the recommendation. All information was shared prior to the actual bid process so that they could construct their bid,” Shannon said.

Spears then turned his attention to Superintendent Martha Liddell.

“Dr. Liddell, have you been providing all information regarding two potential service providers for every board member to review? This is including proposals, supplemental documents, policy violation reports and other material that would provide the board with complete information to make a decision?”

Liddell said that information was provided by Shannon.

“To my knowledge, Mr. Spears, that was facilitated through the office of the deputy superintendent but to my knowledge board members were provided everything. ” Liddell said.

“Everything that has been submitted to you?” Spears asked

Liddell responded, “Everything that has been submitted through the bid process to the board as far as answering questions and seeing all the facts.”

Asking again, Spears said, “Not just that, but every bit of information that has been reported to you?”

“Everything reported to me has been shared,” Liddell said.

Speaking to board secretary Jan Ballard, Spears said, “Make sure that is noted on the record, please.”

Competitive vs.

comparable

Spears, who has been vocal in his questioning of Ecco Ride’s bid, continued asking Shannon if employee benefits were supposed to be “competitive.” Shannon said they were supposed to be “comparable” and after some back and forth, board attorney David Dunn could not locate the exact wording on the bid proposals.

Frustrated, Spears said, “So we’ll just go with we don’t know?”

Questioning Spears, Verdell asked, “Is there a concern about the benefits package that is being offered?”

Spears responded that he believed there was an issue and noted that Waters employees currently have the option of participating in a 401(k). With Ecco Ride, a 401(k) is not currently available. Bus drivers in the audience began murmuring that they did not currently contribute to a 401(k).

“Getting to the point in respect to pay, with Ecco Ride, based on their proposal submitted for consideration, would they pay less than current personnel earn?” Spears asked.

“Correct, their rate for personnel is $19 an hour but the drivers do not receive that amount,” Shannon said, noting that the pay rate that does not reflect withholding for insurance and other benefits.

“I understand but my question is, based on their proposal, would they pay less than what the current transportation personnel earn?”

“Yes, I believe they would,” Shannon answered.

Spears also noted that based on the proposal, Ecco Ride would split insurance premiums 50-50 with the employees. Spears said Waters currently covers 63 percent of the insurance premiums.

“That’s a 13-percent shift to the employee,” Spears said.

Spears said the average employee currently pays $346 a year for health insurance with Waters. Through the proposal Ecco Ride submitted, Spears calculated the average employee would pay an additional $45 a month or approximately $500 a year. Shannon agreed and confirmed Spears calculations.

“They would take a $500 cut in their pay to have health insurance,” Spears said.

The matter of employee pay and benefits had been raised earlier in the meeting by bus driver Walker Clay who asked board members to consider the amount of pay the drivers currently make. Clay has been employed with Waters since 2009 and said he and fellow bus drivers recently took a pay cut.

“We have an issue that we feel is very important,” Clay said. “We think it causes us as drivers not to be able to focus on our jobs as we should, so we feel we need to address this item to them board.

“We were hired by Waters Transportation in 2009. We were hired by them. We agreed on a salary. This salary was $16.45 an hour. We worked for them three-and-a-half years. This year, they chose to take $2.50 per hour in pay from the drivers.”

Clay said he and fellow employees were told the pay cut was due to rising cost in insurance, but the pay cut did not prevent their insurance premiums to rise.

“They blamed it on healthcare, which we can’t see,” Clay said. “Then they came back and increased our insurance to where the people were paying $4-per-hour a week for insurance. It went from $4 a week to $28 a week. This is a six-time increase so we as drivers, we felt obligated to this city and to the children to continue through this school year but we wanted to be heard after the school year.”

Asking board members to consider the issue with their pay, Clay said, “So now the drivers are asking to be made whole and to be put back where they were.”

As the audience began getting louder, a representative from Ecco Ride questioned if Spears had read the entire proposal.

Board President Currie Fisher quickly told the audience that outbursts would not be allowed and anyone who continued to speak out of turn would be removed.

Spears questions

Ecco Ride bid

Spears continued with his concerns and called out fellow board members for what he felt was behind the scenes lobbying.

“So the whole point, and I think that you can see tempers are flaring, is the fact that facts do not cease to exist just because you ignore them and it is right here in front of you. So what I want to do is encourage all of the taxpayers to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to see everything that we have been privy to. Pay, 401(k), as it does not exist. See for yourself that I’m not here advocating one person or one entity over another. I’m going by the facts.

And lastly, Mrs. Verdell, I’ve been disheartened by the relentless effort of some here tonight to get votes to pass the Ecco Ride proposal and their willingness to side with a wink and a nod rather than the facts and that’s exactly the bottom line.”

When Verdell questioned Spears on what he meant by his comment, Spears said that while the Waters’ bid was higher, he felt it had all of the information need to make an educated decision. He claimed Ecco Ride’s proposal did not include all the necessary facts.

“We have one proposal before us that clearly outlines everything. Whether you like it or not, higher dollar, whatever, it has everything that you can truly evaluate every aspect of the proposal by. The other is responsive. Meaning that we’ll give you a couple ideas that we’re going to do this or we’re going to have health insurance or we’re going to do that, but you can’t sit here and say you have the material facts to truly nail down and say, ‘Yes, I think this is the best for the personnel.’ The bottom line is, and this is why I encourage everyone to look at the proposal, it’s not there.”

With that, the school board voted 3-1 to accept Ecco Ride with Turner, Verdell and Fisher voting for and Spears against. Board member Glenn Lautzenhiser was absent.

After the decision, a representative from Waters approached Ecco Ride CEO Tom McCaughey, shook his hand and congratulated him.

McCaughey said his company is eager to get to work in the district.

“We’re grateful the board chose to work with us and we’re anxious to get to work,” McCaughey said.

Waters CEO Mike Waters said while they were disappointed they lost the bid, he pledged to help make the transition smooth.

“We’ll work with the successful bidder to help them transition the best we can,” he said.

The board also voted to reject bids for nutrition and maintenance, voting instead to keep the services in-house. Both votes passed 3-1 with Turner, Verdell and Spears voting in favor with Fisher voting against.

Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.