School Trustees, Tardy Bus Company Tangle

At an emergency meeting late Thursday, trustees of the Orange Unified School District tried to figure out why their newly privatized bus program collapsed one day before school started.

Board members listened as the contractor for the service and then district administrators outlined the series of events that resulted in sporadic delays and caused about two dozen special education students to stay home Wednesday because they had no transportation.

Time is paramount, officials said, because the other two companies that bid for the district contract last year would need several months to start up. The board expects to vote Thursday on whether to try privatization again with a different company, or to go back to in-house transportation.

One thing was clear: Goleta-based Santa Barbara Transportation Co., which walked off the job Tuesday, is out. The company blamed the withdrawal of service on an insurance contract dispute with the school district.

“It’s obvious there is no love lost between us and the administration,” said Ken Stokes, president of the company, which had contracted to provide drivers for the district’s 71 bus routes.

Stokes said school officials failed to give them proof of insurance for buses and drivers and sabotaged the company’s efforts to hire the drivers laid off by the district last spring.

District officials countered that coverage was complete except for one area: dealing with willful misconduct of drivers. The company was using the issue as a smoke screen to deflect attention from their inability to hire enough drivers to start the year, officials said.

School board members made no comments during the two-hour session except to ask questions.