May 12, 2016 3 min read

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced Thursday four local school districts are among 19 statewide that spent $54.8 million more for student transit than the Department of Education’s reimbursement.

DePasquale is calling on the state Legislature to require all districts to seek competitive bids for transportation services. The four schools in the region identified in the audit are Bethlehem-Center, Carmichaels, Chartiers-Houston and Monessen.

Bethlehem-Center was audited using data in 2005-06 and 2009-10, with the auditor’s office finding the district spent $6.3 million more than the Education Department’s transportation reimbursement allowance. Carmichaels data from 2004-05 and 2009-10 led the office to find $2.9 million in excessive payouts. Chartiers-Houston was found to have spent $1 million more than the state allowance, according to data from 2010-11 and 2012-13. And Monessen was found to have spent $731,000 in excess of the state’s reimbursements.

“I want to put more education dollars in our classrooms, not our school buses,” DePasquale said during a news conference at the state Capitol.

“To get the best possible price and ensure transparency for taxpayers, student transportation contracts should be re-bid every time they are up for renewal,” DePasquale said, noting that the Public School Code does not currently require school districts to bid out busing services.

Carmichaels business manager Amy Todd said she thinks the reason the school district made DePasquale’s list is an unusually long 10-year transportation contract approved by the board in 2004. That contract with Haulit, which was eventually absorbed into First Student, just expired last year.

The school board last May approved a new four-year contract with First Student after receiving three bids. The contract paid First Student about $912,000 for transportation services in the first year, with 2 or 2 ½ percent increases each year after.

Todd said she was not working with the district when the 10-year contract was approved, so she is unsure why it agreed to those terms a decade ago. The new contract was expected to save the district about $950,000 during the four-year term.

“That was the contract that was in existence that we needed to rebid it when it expired (last year),” she said. “Once that happened, we did a formal bidding process and approved a new contract.”

Beth-Center Superintendent Linda Marcolini declined to comment on the report because she did not have an opportunity to discuss it with the district’s transportation director.

Representatives of Beth-Center, Chartiers-Houston and Monessen could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.