State chooses 2 firms to bus kids to school

The state Department of Education announced Tuesday that Roberts Hawaii and Ground Transport Inc. will provide bus service for Oahu schoolchildren in the 2014-2015 school year.

At a cost of nearly $21 million, contracts were awarded Nov. 27 following a request for proposal process that began in July, the DOE said in a news release.

The contracts are among major reforms underway since December 2012 to meet recommendations by the state auditor’s office and the DOE’s transportation consultant, Management Partnership Services, to make fundamental changes to the bus procurement process, DOE said.

Roberts received 181 of Oahu’s 305 school bus routes, while Ground Transport will be responsible for 124 routes.

The announcement came ahead of a scheduled Board of Education Finance and Infrastructure Committee meeting on Tuesday.

The DOE said the proposal process incorporated a completely revised contract performance management process that is expected to result in more effective oversight of operations and transportation expenditures.

The DOE officially embarked on a multiyear, multiphased effort dubbed the "Get on Board" program earlier this school year to transform its transportation services.

The department said it commissioned Management Partnership Services to conduct a study of its transportation system after 100 bus routes had to be cut in June 2012 to make up for rising contract costs and a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall.

The state auditor’s office discovered last year that the cost of providing student transportation nearly tripled from 2006 to 2012 to $72.4 million.

Under the Get on Board program, the DOE was able to restore bus service to 1,000 students at 32 schools in the Aiea, Moana­lua, Pearl City, Radford and Wai­pahu High complex areas earlier this school year, the department said. Last month the second phase of the program restored service to 200 students from August Ahrens Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, Pearl City High and Wai­pahu High.