Ironwood votes against bus privatization

By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Ironwood — The Ironwood Area Schools will continue to operate its own busing service, after the district’s board of education voted against privatization Monday.

Dave Martinson, who spoke on behalf of the support staff’s union, made the case for keeping the district’s drivers.

Martinson argued the move would not only cost the district more than it now spends on transportation, it would also take money out of the area as he said it was unlikely all the district’s employees would be hired and the company proposing the privatization — Schilleman Bus Service — is based in Eagle River, Wis. He also pointed out the district has reduced its transportation costs over the past several years through the collective bargaining process with the union, which wouldn’t be possible once it entered into an agreement with a private company.

Martinson also argued there were intangible benefits to the district maintaining its busing staff rather than privatizing, one of which was the impact the drivers have on the students.

“These are the individuals that greet your students on a daily basis. Our students see them in the hallways, because many of the bus drivers are custodians as well. Our students talk with them about their day and often seek them out as a comfortable person,” Martinson said. “Our bus drivers take care of the students as if they were their own.

“That’s not something I’m willing to risk losing, that’s not something our community should be willing to risk, that’s not something you should be willing to lose.”

He also argued the district was giving up local control, as it would be nearly impossible to return to district-operated busing once it sells its fleet of buses.

The vote was the result of a presentation Schilleman’s Greg Herfindahl gave at the January board meeting.

Herfindahl said the privatization could reduce administration costs and generate funds through the sale of the district’s fleet.

Herfindahl proposed an agreement that would have cost the district $300,000 a year for pick-up and drop-off services each day plus the daily trip to Gogebic Community College for students taking classes there. For co-curricular trips inside the city of Ironwood, the district would have paid $55 per run. If the trips left the city, the fee was $16-per-hour and a charge of $1.70 per mile – as long as fuel remained under $4.30 a gallon. If fuel increased above that cost, Herfindahl told the board the company would charge an extra penny per mile for every five cents the price over $4.30.

These additional trips were for school activities such as sports travel and field trips.

“For us to do it, these are the numbers we need,” Herfindahl said in January. “We need to run the kind of equipment we run, that’s just the kind of business we run.”

At the time the numbers didn’t seem to work in favor of privatization, as Superintendent Tim Kolesar said at the time the district spent a total of roughly $287,000 on transportation last year and roughly $269,000 the year before.

The total numbers were already under the $300,000 base rate proposed by Schilleman, and didn’t take into account the co-curricular fee the company proposed.

Along with rejecting the proposal to privatize, the board agreed to review the roles and duties of the drivers/custodians and have Dan Siirila look over the district’s buses to check their condition.

In other action:

—The board approved spending up to $14,250 for the Renaissance Learning tools which are a part of the district’s reading and math curriculum.

—The board approved hiring teacher Kevin Lyons to help in the cafeteria during one of the lunch periods.

—The board approved having the district cast its ballot for Ted Maier, with Engadine Consolidated Schools in Mackinac County, in the election to represent Region 1 on the Michigan Association of School Boards Board of Directors.

—The board also passed a resolution adopting the MASB’s board of education governance standards.