For Immediate Release: May 11, 2010
Contact: Matt O'Connor, CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 - (860) 221-5696 (cell)
PRESTON SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS TELL OFFICIALS, "OUTSOURCING STUDENT
TRANSPORTATION TO OUTSIDERS IS THE WRONG CHOICE"
Local parents and taxpayers joined district drivers at Monday's Board
of Education meeting for discussion of a proposed feasibility study
into contracting-out school bus services
PRESTON—Members of the Preston Board of Education responded to growing
community concerns about the consequences of contracting-out student
transportation services and delayed action on a study into outsourcing
their school bus fleet. Elected officials were expected to approve a
recently commissioned feasibility report at last night's school board
meeting, and chose instead to allow members of their transportation
subcommittee more time to review it after school bus drivers and
parents questioned the process during public comment.
"The Board is again considering outsourcing the services we provide to
a private, for-profit transportation company. That would be the wrong
direction for Preston," said Charlotte Fenton, a bus driver with 33
years of service in Preston Public Schools, at last night's meeting.
"It was the wrong direction the last time outsourcing was proposed (in
2006). We weren't the only voices speaking-out then, and we aren't the
only ones speaking-out now," Fenton, the President of the CSEA/SEIU
Local 2001 chapter representing the schools' bus drivers and
mechanics, said.
Fenton's comments refer to a petition drive organized by town
residents expressing their opposition to allowing the district's
student transportation services to be handed over to private, for-
profit contractors. Preston's Board of Selectmen called a Special Town
Meeting two weeks ago in response to the petition where more than 75
residents turned-out and cast a unanimous, non-binding vote to keep
the school district's bus services under the authority of the Board of
Education.
"Residents spoke loud and clear at the Town Meeting," said Rebecca
Boenig, who also works as a school bus driver for the Preston Public
School District. "They understand that private contractors take money
out of local towns as profit, and they don't want to send our tax
dollars someplace as far away as Scotland," said Boenig, a member of
the negotiating committee for the Union's local chapter.
Boenig's comments refer to the domination of Connecticut's private
student transportation industry by a handful of large companies,
several of which are based overseas. In recent years the state has
become a battleground where multi-national corporations have fought a
race to the bottom that has dragged down reliability and safety
standards in many local communities.
CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 represents 25,000 active and retired public
sector workers serving in state, municipal, and town agencies, as well
as local school boards across Connecticut. The union's membership also
includes workers with non-profits and private companies contracted to
state and local government agencies. Visit www.seiu2001.org online for
more information about the union's "Driving Up Standards" efforts.
# # #
Charlotte Fenton's Statement for Public Comment at May 10 Preston
Board of Education Meeting:
http://bit.ly/9fxaMD
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