Bus company that serviced V.S. schools shuts down; drivers blame districts, state

On April 28, the Baumann Bus Company, one of Long Island’s largest school bus companies, filed a notice with the New York Department of Labor that it had ceased operations amid the coronavirus pandemic.

All four Valley Stream school districts contracted with Baumann for busing services in some capacity, according to Debra Hagan, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 252, which represents a portion of Baumann’s former employees. The company’s closure raises questions about how school busing services might be affected in the fall if school returns to normal.

In Districts 30 and 24, Baumann transported students attending private schools who live within their respective district boundaries, while District 13 used Baumann for in-district busing. In the Central High School District, Baumann was among eight bus companies used for a variety of services. School officials at all four districts said talks were in the early stages to find a replacement for the company.

In its closure notice, Baumann said it was one of the latest casualties of the pandemic, after school districts across Long Island stopped paying for its services in March, when the virus shuttered school buildings across the state, indefinitely ending the need for busing services.

It was unclear whether the pandemic had also ended the districts’ contractual obligations to their busing companies. District 30 Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Stirling said the district had continued to pay for transportation services, while officials of the other three districts declined to comment on whether payments had continued, citing contractual talks and potential litigation.

“That’s the frustrating part about this,” said Hagan, who represents 220 of Baumann’s 1,400 former employees now out of work. “You have contracts with school districts, and the districts are choosing not to pay.”

In particular, she blamed Hauppauge-based Ingerman Smith LLP, a law firm specializing in commercial, labor and education law, for allegedly advising a number of districts that they were not obligated to pay the bus companies they contract with during the pandemic.

Ingerman Smith, which lists dozens of Long Island school districts as clients, including District 24, did not return a request for comment.

At least a few school officials in Valley Stream said the virus, and the associated shutdown orders, posed a number of legal conundrums between districts and their outside contractors when their services are not in use, potentially causing a situation in which tax dollars are given as a public gift to the companies.

“It’s not only thorny, but messy and even legally complicated,” Central High School District board President Jim Lavery said of the situation. “With each executive order that came from the governor came a slew of undefined, unclear mandates. So legally there were questions about paying contractors with taxpayer funds for work that wasn’t done.”

The fast-moving nature of the coronavirus left the district waiting for answers from Albany, he said, on how to handle legal issues arising from the associated school building closures, including bus service payments.

Drivers too leveled criticism at the state for a lack of clarity over mandates arising from the coronavirus. Dan DeCrotie, president of Teamsters Local 1205, which represents 900 of Baumann’s former employees, said payments to bus companies had been an ongoing issue since Gov. Andrew Cuomo relaxed the 180 school-day requirement for districts to maintain their aid at the outset of the pandemic.

“That state aid is supposed to be used to pay district employees and vendors,” he said. “This has not happened. The lack of clarity or guidance from the [New York State Education Department] regarding this issue has resulted in most districts not paying their school bus transportation companies, and now you see the results.”

A NYSED representative did not respond to a request for comment. In an attempt to clarify the confusion, DeCrotie and Hagan, along with representatives from four other transportation unions, sent a letter to Cuomo asking him to maintain funding to school bus companies, or else a potential 125,000 drivers across the state could be out of work.