Dear Parents and Friends,
At their meeting held on July 9, 2008, your school committee chose to confirm their commitment to students and student services by voting to out-source student transportation. This was a very difficult decision for the school committee to make. Little Compton has run its own transportation for many years. The drivers and monitors are our neighbors and friends and the emotional factor in this decision was very significant.
In the end it became a choice between trying to preserve our school programs and student services or continuing to provide in house transportation. Although the choice was difficult for your school committee, I believe that they made the correct one.
By way of background, during the recently completed budget cycle, the school committee had to reduce one teaching position from the budget to comply with the new (2006) property tax cap restrictions. This legislation will require the schools and town to continue to reduce the amount of money that may be appropriated until the cap reaches 4%.
It became clear that, due to factors beyond their control such as collective bargaining agreements and decreasing revenue, the degradation of the educational program would continue if the school committee didn’t find additional revenue and act quickly.
In the fall of 2007, the school committee asked me to investigate the feasibility of contracting transportation as a possible means of saving educational positions and services. At that time communities throughout East Bay were preparing to collectively bid student transportation services. We joined with all of the other communities in the East Bay in an attempt to realize an economy of scale by this joint purchasing arrangement. Our portion of the bid was identified as “for informational purposes”.
Once the bids were opened, an extensive analysis was conducted of our cost of providing transportation and compared to the bid cost. The savings to be realized by contracting this service has been shown to be significant, $886,862 over the five years of the contract. Following this analysis, the bidder, First Student Transportation, agreed to honor its "informational bid" prices until the school committee was prepared to make a decision. The school committee attorney advised the school committee that they could, if they so wished, enter into contract under the provisions of the regional bid that included the participation of Little Compton. Following a lengthy public hearing on the matter held on June 25, the school committee voted to contract student transportation with First Student Transportation at their regular meeting held on July 9, 2008.
We believe that these savings, some of which will go to the town such as retirement savings, will help the schools to deal with the negative impact of the tax limiting laws currently in place. Please feel free to address any questions to me through my e-mail address at hgdevine@littlecomptonschools.org.
I hope that all of our families have a wonderful and relaxing summer.
Yours truly,
Harold G. Devine, Ed. D.
Superintendent of Schools